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THE GENESIS OF 
CORNEILLE'S MEUTE 



GUST. L. VAN ROOSBROECK 



Kiiuse PuBusHiNG Co. Vinton, Iowa 



'1- 



THE GENESIS OF 
CORNEILLE'S MEUTE 



GUSTfL. Van roosbroeck 



KrUSE PUBIISHING Co, ViNTON, loWA 



Pierre Coriieille began his career as a writer of comedy and 
to his comedies was due his early reputation as a dramatic poet. 
Rare ecrivain de notre France, 
Qui le premier des beaux esprits 
As fait revivre en tes ecrits 
L' esprit de Plaute et de Terence; 
exclaimed Mairet in 1634, in the complimentary poems of 
La Veuve and Du Petit- Val repeats upon the same occasion: 
Ce style familier non encore entrepris, 
Ni connu de personne, a de si bonne grace, 
Du theatre francois change la vieille face. 
Que la scene tragique en a perdu le prix. 
His early plays acquired the esteem of the court. In the 
Examen of the Melite he expressly states that his first work 
"me fit connaitre a la cour", and he repeats in the Excuse 
a Ariste: ''Mon vers charma la cour." There exists evidence 
that some of Corneille's early comedies were represented before 
the court, in 1633, at Forges (Normandy), when the king, the 
queen and Richelieu resided there for some time. (1) 

But the spectacular success of the Cid and of the tragedies 
which followed soon, engrossed the attention of his contempor- 
aries just as they have largely absorbed the attention of his 
posterity. His first comedies were almost forgotten, and it be- 
came the fashion to date his work from his first tragedies, es- 
pecially from the Medee of 1635, and to dismiss his early pro- 
ductions with a few disdainful words. 

La Bruyere asserted: "Ses premieres comedies sont seches, 
languissantes et ne laissaient pas esperer qu' il dut ensuite aller 
si loin." (2) Boileau agreed with him: Tout son merite pour- 
tant a 1' heure qu' il est, ayant ete mis par le temps comme dans 
un creuset, se reduit a hnit ou neuf pieces de theatre, qu' on ad- 
mire et qui sont, s' il faut ainsi parler, comme le midi de sa 
poesie dont V orient et V Occident n' ont rien valu. " (3) Their 
assertions were echoed by Voltaire: ''Ses premieres comedies 
....sont a la verite, indignes de notre siecle, mais elles furent 
longtemps ce qu' il y avait de moins mauvais en ce genre, tant 
nous etions loin de la plus legere connaissance des beaux arts.'^ 



Gift 
Author 



(4) La Harpe showed even less condescension: On me dispen- 
sera, sans doute, de parler des premieres comedies de Corneille 
... On se souvient seulement qu' il les a faites et que sans rien 
valoir, elles valent mieux que toutes celles de son temps." (5) 
According to Nisard they are only to be read ^'through cur- 
iosity." (6). 

In this way the general perspective of Corneille 's w^ork was 
altered. He was considered almost exclusively as a writer of 
tragedies of the heroic cast. And, since he was so superior to 
his many rivals, he soon came to stand alone. The notion of 
Corneille 's absolute independence of his surroundings and of 
the literary efforts of his predecessors has been generally ac- 
cepted. The Abbe d' Olivet exclaims: **Voila Corneille qui, 
sans modele, sans guide, trouvant I'art en lui-meme, tire la 
tragedie du chaos ou elle etait parmi nous." (7). For Nisard 
*^an abyss separates Corneille from all that can be called a play 
before him." (8). 

With the publication of Taschereau's Histoire de la Vie de 
Pierre Corneille (1829), a reaction set in. His first plays were 
here, if not thoroughly studied, at least given some place in his 
work. But the former attitude of mind toward Corneille re- 
mained uppermost in the estimation of most critics. Some of 
them studied his first productions with the intention of discov- 
ering in these early works the unmistakable signs of future 
greatness. As a natural consequence they were sometimes 
praised beyond their real merit. This has been especially true 
of his very first play, of the M elite. Some critics already per- 
ceived in this coup d' essai the methods, inventions and inno- 
vations of an independent writer with almost revolutionary ten- 
dencies. The tradition that Corneille was inspired by an actual 
event in his own life to write the Melite was interpreted as 
meaning that he wrote the play without taking inspiration from 
any of his predecessors and contemporaries, without going 
through the apprenticeship in language and stage-craft w'hich 
is necessary even to the most original genius of the theater. So, 
for example, Roger Le Brun: *'Mais voici que tout a coup, 
brusquement, sur un ton nouveau, a la fois moins choquante 
dans r esprit et dans la langue, presque epuree, la veritable 
comedie fait son apparition. Sans bassesse dans les caracteres, 
comme sans outrance dans T intrigue, elle reflete, et d' alerte 
facon, les moeurs de 1' epoque. C est T aurore de la comedie 



moderne; voici, en effet, Pierre Corneille qui debute au theatre, 
apportant T art ou il n' y a encore que d' informes ebauches de 
comedie; voici Melite, premiere oeuvre qu' ait produite le grand 
homme. (9) F. Brunetiere is not far frojn. sharing in this opin- 
ion: **Je crois que dans notre litterature classique elles (les 
comedies) sont longtemps demeurees sans imitateurs, comme 
elles etaient a peu pres sans modeles. Je crois qu' avec d' autres 
qualites elles ne sont pas moins originales en leur genre que la 
comedie de Moliere et que les Plaideurs de Racine. " ( 10 ) Accord- 
ing to these writers, who are spokesmen for more, the form, matter 
and treatment in Corneille 's early comedies are almost exclus- 
ively the result of the poet's unaided inspiration. There seems to 
be no link between him and the literature of the time. In comedy 
as well as in tragedy he is, according to the expression of Sainte- 
Beuve, **a genius by instinct, blind and independent/' 

Since this conception of Corneille 's early works is founded 
largely upon the anecdote about the origin of the Melite, I pro- 
pose here to examine in detail the facts known about the genesis 
of this play and to study, incidentally, the relation of this 
**coup d' essai", as Corneille terms it, to the contemporary lit- 
erature. 

To enable the reader to follow the argument further ex- 
pounded, a resume of the play, based on the text of the first 
edition, (1633), is here printed: 

Act I. Sc. 1. Braste confides to Tircis how he suffers from 
the disdain of Melite whom he loves and has ''served." Tircis 
talks with cynical irony of love, women and the ''burdens" of 
marriage. Eraste defies him to maintain this attitude after hav- 
ing beheld the beauty of Melite. Sc. 2. The two friends visit 
Melite who treats ironically the love declarations of Eraste. 
Sc. 3. Tircis confesses to Eraste that he is not insensible to the 
charms of Melite but disclaims any intention of paying court to 
her. Alone, he soliloquizes that in love affairs friendship does 
not count. Sc. 4. Love scene between Philandre and Cloris, 
sister of Tircis. Sc. 5. Tircis interrupts and rails at their love 
making. 

Act II. Sc. 1. Braste complains of the favor which Tircis 
seems to be receiving from Melite. Sc. 2. Eraste meets Melite 
and reproaches her for her intimacy with Tircis. Sc, 3. Eraste, 
in despair, resolves to get Tircis out of his w^ay by preparing 



forged love-letters from Melite to Philandre. Sc. 4. Eraste 
secures by a gift the aid of Cliton, neighbor of Melite. Sc. 5. 
Tircis has composed a sonnet for Melite which he intends to 
give to Eraste ; he shows it to his sister Cloris who recognizes 
his love for the heroine of the play. Sc. 6. Eraste gives Cliton 
the forged letter of Melite to Philandre, suitor of Cloris. Sc. 7. 
Cliton delivers the letter to Philandre ; while he is reading this 
letter Eraste appears ; discloses the love of Tircis for Melite and 
encourages Philandre. Sc. 8. Tircis brings his sonnet on 
Melite to Eraste, who refuses to accept it while Melite watches 
the maneuver from a window. Sc. 9. Melite confesses to Tircis 
her love for him. 

Act III. Sc. 1. Philandre soliloquizes on his love for 
Melite. Sc. 2. Tircis confides his love for M-elite to Philandre 
who shows him the forged letters of the heroine as a proof of 
her infidelity. Tircis challenges Philandre who refuses to fight. 
Sc. 3. Tircis soliloquizes on the infidelity of Melite and re- 
solves to commit suicide. Sc. 4. Cloris meets him and he shows 
her the forged letters he has taken from Philandre. Sc. 5. 
Cloris resolves to show Melite the letters which she has re- 
ceived from her brother, Tircis. Sc. 6. Philandre resolves to 
get the letters back from Tircis. Sc. 7. Philandre meets Cloris 
who shows him the letters which she is about to give to Melite. 
Sc. 8. Philandre goes to demand the letters from Tircis. 

Act. IV. Sc. 1. The Nurse counsels Melite on her conduct 
in love matters. Sc. 2. Cloris visits Melite and shows her the 
letters. Melite denies having written them. Sc. 3. Lisis, a 
friend of Tircis announces that the latter has died of grief. 
Melite swoons. Sc. 4. Cliton, Eraste 's letter-carrier, arrives; 
he concludes that Melite is dead. Sc. 5. Eraste soliloquizes on 
the success of his forged letters. Sc. 6. Cliton informs him 
that both Melite and Tircis are dead. Eraste goes mad; he be- 
lieves himself in the infernal regions and takes Cliton for 
Charon. Sc. 7. Philandre seeks Tircis. Sc. 8. The mad 
Eraste thinks he is fighting ghosts and demons. He takes Phil- 
andre for Minos and explains his deception of the forged let- 
ters. Sc. 9. Ravings of Eraste. Sc. 10. Lisis informs Cloris 
that her brother Tircis is not dead. 

Act. V. Sc. 1. Cliton tells the Nurse of the madness of 
Eraste. Sc. 2. Delirium of Eraste. He takes the nurse for 
Melite but finally recognizes her and comes to his senses. Sc. 3. 



Philandre tries, but unsuccessfully to become reconciled with 
Cloris. Sc. 4. Tircis who has come back and Melite rejoice 
over their happiness and resolve upon their marriage. Sc. 5. 
Cloris announces that she has broken with Philandre. Sc. 6. 
Eraste appears and confesses his fault. He obtains his pardon 
and the hand of Cloris. The nurse soliloquizes humorously upon 
her faded charms. 

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ELEMENT IN THE MELITE 

The autobiographical element in Corneille's Melite is one 
of the most discussed questions in Corneille-research. The more 
general opinion is that his first work is almost entirely inspired 
by personal experience; that his later comedies are based 
upon direct observation of his surroundings, whereas his trag- 
edies are a creation of the intellect with little, if any, direct 
influence from his personal life. 

As to the Melite, Thomas Corneille, younger brother of our 
poet, testified that the germ of the play was furnished by a 
love-adventure of Pierre Corneille: **Une avanture galante luy 
fit prendre le dessein de faire une comedie pour y employer un 
sonnet qu^ il avoit fait pour une Demoiselle qu' il aimoit. Cette 
piece dans laquelle est traitee toute 1' avanture et qu' il inti- 
tula Melite cut un suces extraordinaire (11). 

This passage seems to receive a certain confirmation in 
verses which Pierre Corneille wrote in 1637, in the Excuse a 
Ariste : 

Ce que j' ai de nom je le dois a 1' amour. 

J'adorai done Philis; et la secrete estime 

Que ce divin esprit faisait de notre rime 

Me fit devenir poete aussitot qu' amoureux. (12). 

On the basis, apparently, of these declarations, Fontenelle, 
nephew of the poet, produced a statement which is more cir- 
cumstantial and precise, although different in one respect: Ac- 
cording to Fontenelle, Pierre Corneille added ''something" to 
the truth, whereas Thomas Corneille states that the ''whole ad- 
venture" was reproduced in the play. Fontenelle says: II 
(Corneille) ne songeoit a rien moins qu' a la poesie et il ig- 
noroit lui-meme le talent extraordinaire qu' il avoit, lorsqu' il 
lui arriva une petite aventure de galanterie dont il s' avisa de 
faire une piece de theatre, en ajoutant quelque chose a la 
verite. On donnoit a Rouen le nom de Melite a la dame qui 



avoit fait naitre 1' avanture qui faisoit le sujet de cette piece." 
(13). 

The last sentence of this passage has acted as a powerful 
stimulant upon the curiosity of later historians. In 1738, the 
abbe Granet, editor of Corneille's works, in a commentary upon 
the Excuse a Ariste, identifies the lady loved by P. Corneille 
as a certain Mme Du Pont, married to a ''maitre des comptes" 
of Rouen. He did not, however, give any proof of his identifi- 
cation. (14). 

A field so fertile could not fail to bear some different kind 
of fruit. At the end of the eighteenth century, Jos. Andre 
Guiot brought forward another and a contradictory identifica- 
tion of Corneille 's Melite. In Le Moreri des Normands he in- 
troduces Mile Millet as the prototype of the heroine who inspired 
Corneille in his early years and revealed his talent to the world : 
*'Sans la demoiselle Millet, tres jolie Eouenaise, Corneille 
peut-etre, n' eut pas si tot connu V amour; sans cette heroine 
aussi, pent etre, la France n' eut jamais connu le talent de Cor- 
neille . . . . Le plaisir de cette aventure determina Corneille 
a faire la comedie de Melite, anagramme du nom de sa maitresse. 
(15) Fifty years later (1834) Emmanuel Gaillard improved 
upon this assertion which, in its turn, had been presented with- 
out any citation of proofs: J' ajouterai qu' elle (Mile Millet) 
demeurait a Rouen, rue aux Juifs, No. 15. Le fait m' a ete at- 
teste par M. Dommey, ancien greffier, et par deux demoiselles 
(16). Marty-Laveaux sought to reconcile these two identifica- 
tions; first by supposing that Mile Millet became Mme Du Pont 
through marriage ; (17) then, renouncing this theory, he con- 
cluded that Corneille had been inspired by two sweethearts, 
Mile Millet, for whom he had felt an ephemeral passion about 
the time of the composition of the Melite, and another, Mme Du 
Pont, to whom he had consecrated the more enduring affection 
reflected in the Excuse a Ariste. 

In his valuable work Points ohscurs et nouveaux de la vie 
de Pierre Corneille, Mr. Bouquet has expounded a theory of 
the Melite as an autobiographical document, which is based sole- 
ly upon the information supplied by the abbe Granet, in 1738. 
Mr. Bouquet rightly rejects the invention of a shadowy Mile 
Millet as the prototype of Corneille 's Melite by Jos. Andre 
Guiot, about 1785, because this identification is manifestly a 



very late development of a Corneille-legend, with no basis in 
fact. Its origin is probably the text of Fontenelle where he 
speaks about a lady of Rouen who was given the name of 
Melite because she was the heroine of Corneille's first play. 

Although the commentary of the abbe Granet was written 
more than a century after the first representation of the Melite 
and although no indication was furnished as to the source of 
his important biographical details, his text has been accepted 
without question by Mr. Bouquet and others, and served as 
basis for research about Corneille's early love and his first play. 
Mr. Gosselin found in the archives of Rouen the maiden name 
of Madame Du Pont, who was, according to the abbe Granet, 
the lady Corneille had in mind when he wrote in the Excuse a 
Ariste: 

''Je me sens tout emu quand je 1' entends nommer.'^ 

She was the daughter of Charles Hue, ' ' receveur des aides ' ' at 
Rouen, and of Catherine de Bauquemare. Baptized on the 23d 
of April, 1611, she received the name of her mother: Catherine. 
(18) From these facts Mr. Bouquet deduced a series of identi- 
fications : Melite is Catherine Hue ; Tircis is Corneille himself ; 
the mother of Melite, mentioned in the play, although she does 
not appear on the scene, is Catherine de Bauquemare, widow of 
Charles Hue ; Cloris, in the play the sister of Tircis, is Corneille 's 
younger sister, Marie Corneille, born in 1609. Eraste and Phi- 
landre remained unidentified. Mr. Bouquet expresses his opin- 
ion that thy represent real persons, as the other characters of 
the play. 

Now, the basis of the identifications of Mr. Bouquet, the 
commentary of the abbe Granet, does not seem altogether trust- 
worthy. Granet laid special stress on the fact that Corneille 's 
love for Mme Du Pont (Catherine Hue) Avas a very constant 
one, lasted for many years, and Avas only broken off about 1637, 
the time of the Excuse a Ariste. Thomas Corneille and Fon- 
tenelle, to the contrary, only speak of ''une petite avanture de 
galanterie" of an ephemeral character. Here follows Granet 's 
commentary in full: 

''II (Corneille) avoit aime passionement une dame de 
Rouen, nommee Mme Du Pont, fenime d' un maitre des comptes 
de la meme ville, parfaitement belle. II V avoit connue toute 
petite fille pendant qu' il etudiait au College des Jesuites, et fit 
pour elle plusieurs petites pieces de galanterie, qu' il n^a jamais 



voulu rendre puhliques, quelques instances que lui aient faites ses 
amis; il les brula lui meme environ deux ans avant sa mort. II 
lui communiquoit la plupart de ses pieces avant de les mettre au 
jour, et comme elle avoit beaucoup d' esprit, elle critiquoit fort 
judicieusement, de sorte que M. Corneille a dit plusieurs fois qu' 
il lui etoit redevable de plusieurs endroits de ses premieres 
pieces." (CEuvres de Corneille, 1738). 

Since Corneille left the College of the Jesuits about 1623, 
his love for Catherine Hue (later Mme Du Pont), according to 
Granet's commentary, must have begun before this date; and 
since he is said to have shown her ''most of his early plays", he 
must have been on good terms with her until at least 1634-35. 
Corneille 's love is thus represented as a very constant one, last- 
ing from ten to twelve years. It is to this constant love Cor- 
neille is supposed to allude in the Excuse a Ariste (1637), when 
he tells us that love taught him to rhyme: 

' ' Puisque ce f ut par la que j ' appris a rimer. ' ' 
Now, it must be noticed that Corneille had already referred 
five years earlier to that love "which taught him to rhyme", in 
one of the poems printed in an appendix to his play Clitandre 
(1632): 

J' ai fait autrefois de la bete; 
J' avois des Philis a la tete : 



Soleils, flambeaux, attraits, appas, 
Pleurs, desespoirs, tourments, trepas, 
Tout ce petit meuble de bouche 
Dont un amoureux s' escarmouche 
Je savais bien m'en escrimer; 
Par la je m' appris a rimer; 
Par la je fis sans autre chose, 
Un sot en vers d' un sot en prose. . . . 

(Marty-Laveaux, X, 25). 

In both poems the name of the lady is given as Philis. 
Now, if these two poems refer to the same love-adventure, as 
is quite clear from their text, this love-adventure had ceased 
in 1632, and Corneille was not taught to rhyme by a long and 
constant love, but by an ephemeral love-adventure, the ''petite 
aventure de galanterie" to which Fontenelle refers. The poem 



of 1632 {a Monsieur D. L. T.) indicates clearly that at that 
date Corneille was cured from love-fever. It is very apparent, 
on the other hand, in the Excuse a Ariste (1637) that the love 
referred to had ceased a long time previously for Corneille 
says there : 

''Aussi n' aimais je plus et nul objet vainqueur, 
**N' a possede depuis ma veine ni mon coeur." 

Both poems refer then to a love adventure, which taught 
Corneille to rhj^me, and which must have been finished before 
1632, so that the explanations of the abbe Granet about the 
corrections which Mme Du Pont suggested in the early plays 
of Corneille cannot be accepted as based in fact. Granet seems 
to have felt that there existed a contradiction between his com- 
mentary, which mentioned a long and constant love, and the 
text of the Excuse a Ariste, which referred to a love finished 
since a long time. He misread Corneille 's text, or changed it 
to make it fit in with his own explanation. Corneille had writ- 
ten : 

Elle eut mes premiers vers, elle eut mes derniers feux; 

In Granet 's text this verse reads: 

Elle eut mes premiers,r'glle eut mes premiers feux; (Marty 
Lav X, 77, Note 2) which agreed with is own commentary: "II 
1' avoit connue toute petite /i//e pendant qu' il etudiait a Rouen 
au College des Jesuites." 

Another point in which the commentary of the abbe Granet 
is not in accordance with fact is that he says that Corneille 
wrote for his beloved ''plusieurs petites pieces de galanterie 
qu' il n' a jamais voulu rendre publiques, quelques instances 
que lui aient faites ses amis." This statement cannot refer to the 
poems Corneille wrote for his sweetheart, Melite, for, far from 
refusing to print them, he publishes twice the well-known sonnet : 
"Apres les yeux de Melite il n' y a rien d' adorable", once in 
the Poesies following the Clitandre and once in the play Melite. 
Besides, the very fact that he produced a whole play about his 
love adventure shows clearly enough that he wasA^v^rse to pub- 
licity about it. Vi^S 

It must be concluded that the commentary ot the abbe 
Granet does not present a sufficiently reliable clue to the iden- 
tity of the real lady, who, possibly, is hidden behind the name 
Melite in Corneille 's first work. 



When the identifications made by Gosselin and Bou- 
quet are considered from the point of view of internal evidence 
some contradictions are at once perceived. Tircis, said to be 
Corneille himself, is indeed a credulous personage. When the 
false letters, manufactured by Eraste, fall in his hands, he at 
once runs away, speaking of suicide instead of ascertaining 
from his beloved their reality or falseness. And, Cloris, — sup- 
posed to be Marie Corneille, — is represented in the play as very 
free in manners. She has on the scene very intimate love-con- 
versations with her lover, Philandre, and she accepts the falsi- 
fier Eraste for husband without showing any notion of moral 
reserve. Would Corneille have painted his younger sister with 
such traits? (19). 

Corneille 's first play concludes with marriages of Tircis 
with Melite and of Cloris with Eraste. They took place the same 
evening, after the action, as is proved by various passages in the 
first edition which have mostly been erased in the later ones. 
Verses 1707 and following, for instance, sounded in the early 
editions : 

Tircis : 

Tous nos pensers sont dus a ces chastes delices 
Dont le ciel se prepare a borner nos supplices: 
Le terme en est si proche, il n 'attend que la nuit. 
and the play concluded: 

La Nourrice : 

AUez, je vais vous faire a ce soir telle niche, 
Qu'au lieu de labourer, vous lairrez tout en friche. 
The expressions are not elegant but quite clear; they prove that 
the marriages were set for the same evening that the action was 
finished. 

Now, Corneille 's love-adventure, which he is supposed to 
have brought on the scene with the Melite, was not ended with 
a marriage. 

Apres beaucoup de voeux et de submissions, 
Un malheur rompt le cours de nos affections, 
he said in the Excuse a Ariste, eight years after the time of 
the Melite. Mr. Bouquet (op. Cit. 58) opiniates that, by the end 
of the play, the real Melite had obtained a promise of marriage 
from her mother and he devotes a page to an hypothesis about 
the fact why this promise was not kept. Such marriages at the 



end of plays were entirely conventional so that no autobiographi- 
cal value can be attached to them. 

All that results from the conflicting testimonials of Fon- 
tenelle, Thomas Corneille and the abbe Granet, is that the 
nucleus of the Melite was furnished by a personal love-adven- 
ture of Corneille, and that to that nucleus, he added various 
episodes. (See note 20). It is possible that Madame Du Pont 
(Catherine Hue) was the heroine of the Melite, but there is no 
contemporary evidence to that effect. The statements of the 
Abbe Granet must be accepted only with reserve. It seems un- 
warranted to build on the slight foundation of his conflicting 
commentary a series of identifications as undertaken in the 
work of Mr. Bouquet. Until more evidence is presented, it 
seems reasonable to state about the Melite nothing more than 
exactly what Thomas Corneille and Fontenelle said : That the 
impulse to write the Melite and the nucleus of the play were 
both due to a personal adventure of Pierre Corneille. 

And even then it is necessary to make a preliminary dis- 
tinction : Corneille 's love for Melite may have been the occasion 
of the first blossoming of his talent, it cannot be its origin. 
Corneille was quite well acquainted with the literature of the 
times (21), and it is possible to find counterparts of the char- 
acters and of the situations of the Melite in the novels and the 
plays of his period. In some parts the incidents and the char- 
acters of Corneille 's early plays resemble so closely more or 
less traditional stage-characters and situations that the ques- 
tion '^ Where ends the biographical inspiration and where be- 
gins the purely literary?" seems well-nigh insoluble. A few 
resemblances and counterparts of the heroes and the plot of 
Corneille 's first play will be pointed out in the following pages. 

THE NAME MELITE 

The name Melite is found in the Greek Anthology, in one 
of the thirty-eight epigrams of the Byzantine poet Rufinus. It 
occurs too in the late Greek novel Clitophon's and Leucippus' 
Loves by Achilles Tatius, where it designates a wealthy widow. 
This novel was much in vogue in European countries during the 
sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The last four books 
were translated from Greek into Latin by Annibal della Croce, 
(22) and then from Latin into French under the title ^'Les 
Devis Amour eux" (23) by L' Amour eux de la Vertu (Claude 



Collet), in 1545. Another translation which ran through three 
editions was produced some ten years later by Jacques de 
Roquemare (24) : Les quatre derniers livres de propos amour eux 
contenans le discours des amours et marriage du seigneur Clito- 
phont et damoiselle Leusippe. Then follows the complete work 
in French: Les Amours de Clitophon et de Leusippe, escrits 
en grec par Achilles Statius, Alexandrin, et nouvellement tra- 
duits en francois par B. (Belleforest) Comingeois. There are 
three editions of this translation. The evident popularity of 
the novel is further attested by the plays derived from it. A 
lost play of Alexandre Hardy (25), Leucosie, was developed 
from it as a source and one of its characters probably was 
named Melite. Pierre du Ryer also found in it the plot of his 
Clitophon which was played about 1628, and in which Melite 
is a wealthy widow pursuing the hero Clitophon with her atten- 
tions. (25a). The name occurs also in other works composed inde- 
pendently of the Greek novel. So, for example, an anonymous 
novel of 1609 is entitled Les Amours de Melite et de Statiphile 
(26). In the pastoral play of Hardy, Corinne ou le silence, 
Corine et Melite appear as '^jeunes bergeres, egales en beaute, 
qui deviennent eperdument amoureuses de Caliste." The name 
further appears in three other plays which were produced be- 
fore Corneille's first comedy. Melite is the friend of Amaranthe 
in the pastoral play of that name by Gombauld (1625). Pro- 
fessor H. Carrington Lancaster has recently drawn attention to 
another play in which a Melite is found, to Rampalle's Belinde, 
published in 1630 (26a). And, finally, in the Bague d' Ouhli of 
Kotrou, Melite appears in the '^dramatis personae" as a *' demoi- 
selle confidente de Liliane." (27). 

There is no reason to seek in the name Melite a clue for the 
identity of the heroine in the ^* petite avanture de galanterie" 
by which the poet is said to have been inspired nor to believe it 
an anagram. It is merely a name taken from the literature of 
the time, although considerably less banal than that of Philis 
which Corneille uses in the verses quoted with reference to the 
same or another love affair. 

THE RIVAL FRIENDS 

Now as to the ''adventure" itself. Only the initial episode 
of the play can be interpreted as autobiographical : Braste pre- 
sents his friend, the women-despising Tircis, to his sweetheart 



Melite. Tircis falls in love Avith her at sight and soon supplants 
Eraste in the 3'oung lady's affections. The rest of the story: 
the false letters, the madness of Eraste and the marriages at 
the end, are obviously commonplaces from the literature of the 
times. They constitute the incidents which Corneille, accord- 
ing to the testimonial of Fontenelle, ^' added to truth." The 
alleged auto-biographical part of the play, the initial episode, 
vi^ill be considered here first. 

While it may well be that Corneille met in real life with a 
^'galant" experience closely akin to the main theme of the 
Melite, it was yet a kind of adventure which had become long 
since a common-place in literature. Unless we believe that, in 
Corneille 's case, there arose in real life a spontaneous duplica- 
tion of a traditional situation in the letters of the time, we must 
assume that his inspiration was literary. But, even granted 
that the nucleus of the Melite was a personal adventure and not a 
duplication of a favorite literary situation, Corneille 's treat- 
ment of the storj^, his arrangement of the scenes, his conception 
of his heroes and characters were influenced by the contempor- 
ary examples which were numerous enough to constitute stock 
themes of the authors of the period. 

To illustrate this contention, it is sufficient to turn to a 
parallel of the story of the rival friends in, for example Lyly's 
novel Euphues. Witty Euphues is at first, like Eraste, a satyri- 
cal woman-hater, (p. 36-37. Ed. M. Croll and H. Clemond). But, 
being presented by his friend Philautus to Lucilla, for three 
years the latter 's sweetheart, he too supplants him in the lady's 
affections. The story develops like Corneille 's and purports 
to show "the falsehood in felloAvship, the fraud in friendship, 
the fair words that make fools fain." Euphues decides, in a 
soliloquy that over his friendship his love must prevail. In a 
similar way Tircis determines : 

**En matiere d 'amour rien n 'oblige a tenir, 
Et les meilleurs amis, lorsque son feu les presse. 
Font bientot vanite d'oublier leur promesse." 

While the beginning of both stories is parallel, the end dif- 
fers: Euphues is supplanted by a third lover; Tircis marries 
Melite as is natural in a comedy with a happy ending. 

The story of the rival friends in Euphues has been asserted 
to be autobiographical, even as in Corneille 's Melite. (28). On 



the other hand it has been pointed out convincingly that this 
struggle between friendship and love is a commonplace of lit- 
erature which probably originated from a lost Greek romance; 
and that Lyly was directly indebted to Boccaccio's Tito and 
Gisippo {Decam. x, 8) for his narrative (29). 

But what about Corneille's Melitef There too are found 
the same details of plot, the common features of the traditional 
story of the two rival friends. They can be shortly described 
as follows: A has been for years in love Avith a girl, to whom 
he presents his friend B, generally depicted as a woman-hater 
or as a wit. During the visit to the betrothed B falls in love 
w^ith her at first sight. An internal struggle follows between 
his friendship for A and his love. In most stories A gives up 
his sweetheart to B and helps him to marry her; but in some 
cases — as, for instance, in Euphues, — a struggle between the 
two friends follows. 

It does not fall within the scope of this study to trace the 
origin of the numerous narratives and plays based on the con- 
flict between rival friends, nor even to study the various forms 
it has taken in literature. For the present purpose it is suffi- 
cient to point out that the story was treated so frequently about 
the time of Corneille's debut, that it can reasonably be supposed 
that he was acquainted wdth it: (30). 

The story had become familiar through translations and 
adaptations of Boccaccios's Tito e Gisippo, the eighth Novella of 
the Tenth day of the Decamerone. The forty-sixth novel in 
Le Grand parangon des nouvelles Nouvelles, by Nicolas de 
Troj^es, (31) relates the adventure *'D'un compaignon, qui pour 
Tamour qu'il avoit a ung sien compaignon lui donna et livra sa 
propre femme pour espouser. ' ' Another imitation is contained in 
Le Petit Oeuvre d'amour ou gaige d'amitie contenant plusieurs 
diets amour eux (32). Fillipo Beroaldo translated the story 
into Latin Verse and this in its turn was translated into 
French (33). 

In the literature of the time the Astree contains at least 
two versions of this story; first the adventures of Thamyre and 
Calydon both in love with the fair Celidee, and secondly of 
Palemon who favors his friend Adraste in his love for his wife, 
Doris (34). In the play Isahel of P. Ferry (1610) Calvonte, in 
love with Clorifee, assists his rival. The same situation occurs 
in La Diane Frangoise of Du Verdier (1624) in which Climandre 



is ready to resign Amaraiite to his friend Filamon, and finally, 
in La Clorise of Baro, Eraste gives up his beloved Cloris to 
Alidor, her other lover (35), Alexandre Hardy, to whom Cor- 
neille refers as his first model, adapted Boccaccio's novel to the 
stage with his Gesippe on les deux amis. ''Tite, jeune gentil- 
homme Romain, etudiant a Athenes contracte une etroite amitie 
avee Gesippe, Athenien de meme age et de meme qualite, qui 
sur le point d'epouser une des belles d 'Athenes en voulut don- 
ner la veue a ce sien fidelle amy; 1 'aspect d'une contagieuse 
beaute captive Tite d'une telle sorte que reduit au desespoir il 
projette d'abandonner la ville d 'Athenes et sa vie" (36). Hardy's 
treatment of the story differs, of course, from Corneille's in that 
Gesippe yields his sweetheart to his friend and even assists in 
forming their attachment, whereas in Corneille's comedy Eraste 
strives to retain Melite. But the denouement is identical. Just 
as Eraste finally marries Cloris, sister of his friend Tircis, so in 
Hardy's play, Gesippe marries Fulvie, sister of his friend and 
successful rival, Tite. These similarities are the more significant 
because Corneille must have been acquainted with Hardy's 
work, for it was published at Rouen by a friend of his, David 
du Petit- Val, and in the year 1626, that is, only a short time be- 
fore he must have begun to think of producing his first comedy. 

Another play by Hardy, the tragi-comedy, Dorise, is of even 
greater interest in this connection. The first scene of this play 
also presents two friends in love with the same girl and with 
the same result; the first lover is supplanted by the second who 
marries the heroine. Furthermore there is a striking resem- 
blance in important details of the plot. A display of letters 
plays an important part in the Dorise as well as in the Melite 
and the supplanted lover, Salmacis, runs aw^ay to a hermitage 
and becomes mad under the influence of a mysterious charm 
much after the manner of Eraste, in Corneille's comedy. In 
both plays the supplanted lovers finally recover their senses and 
both plays end in a double marriage (37). 

Without lengthening unduly the list of the imitations of 
the Rival-Friend story, it is clear that love and friendship 
brought into rivalry was not uncommon in the literature prev- 
ious to Corneille's debut. The initial episode of the Melite: — 
a lover presents a friend to his sweetheart, and, after a struggle, 
is supplanted by him — is found, situation for situation, in sev- 
eral counterparts. Corneille ^s first play seems a variation upon 



a stock theme of contemporary romance rather than pure auto- 
biography. And, therefore, identification of the characters of 
the Melite with living persons is more than hazardous. All that 
can be gathered from the testimonials of Thomas Corneille and 
of Fontenelle is that, in the Melite, fact was mingled to some 
degree with fiction and truth with make-believe. Yet modern 
criticism has tended to make the Melite entirely true, and a 
realistic autobiography. If Corneille really utilized a personal 
experience, he followed traditional models in the treatment of 
his material, in the development and succession of his scenes, 
in the characterization of his heroes. 

IS TIRCIS, CORNEILLE? 

Tircis, who, in the Melite, supplants his friend Braste in 
his sweetheart's affections, has been identified generally with 
Corneille himself (40). He is depicted as a sceptic in love- 
matters who becomes a convert to love through the bewitching 
beauty of Melite. 

Such an identification becomes, however, very doubtful 
when it is remembered that in the early editions, Tircis was 
guilty of several indecent expressions and allusions. (41). Why 
would Corneille have depicted himself in such unfavorable 
light? Would he really have represented himself as a light- 
hearted sceptic, frequently indecent in his expressions, who be- 
trayed his friend in love? Would he have made the reputation 
of his beloved Melite who rejected her first suitor, an object 
of public commentary? Yet, whether Corneille intended to em- 
body his own **self" in Tircis or not, the first audiences of the 
Melite must have recognized in Tircis a personage with whom 
they were already very familiar. There had grown up in the 
sixteenth century even, in reaction against the hero embodying 
the Platonic love conception which had spread from Italy, a 
type which served sometimes as a contrast and sometimes as a 
foil to these conceptions. It was a type which railed at the 
flowery language and the absurd actions of the exponents of 
" r amour eternel ; " it w^as a literary impersonation of ' * 1 'esprit 
gaulois" which voiced a revolt against the unreal ideals of the 
pastoral novels and plays, insisted upon the realities of life and 
love ; who claimed the right of lovers to ' ' change ' ' and even 
erected inconstancy into a rule of conduct. As such it appears 
in the person of the cynic Saffredent, opponent to the Platonist 



Dagoncin in the Hep tamer on of Marguerite of Navarre. It is 
easy to trace the character through the literature which fol- 
lowed. Estienne Pasquier introduced him in his Monophile 
(1554), the possessor **d'un coeur gay et Francois, estant adonne 
a toutes, sans faire estat d' une seule" who believed **que 
meilleur est faindre Tamour que d 'aimer." In La Pyrenee of 
Belief orest (1572) his name is Drion, who brings love back to 
its natural and materialistic origin and has no patience with 
the Platonic dreamers: ** Quant a moi, j'aime mieux rire a mon 
aise sentant et savourant un pen de plaisir, qu'extatic et reveur 
songer un bonheur qui ne se gagne que par imagination." la 
the Bergeries de Juliette by Ollenix de Mont-Sacre (Nicolas de 
Montreux) he appears as the cool headed Glaphire and as the 
woman-hater Belair in Les Infideles Fideles, faUe hoscagerre 
(1603) of the *' shepherd Calianthe" (probably G. de Bazire). 
Many other novels and plays contain this type of the witty 
sceptic, merry and light-hearted womanhater, lavish with his 
shrewd materialistic counsels. He appears as Floridan in 
L'Heureux Desespere, tragi-comedie pastorale (1613) by C. A. 
Seigneur de C. (Comte Adrien de Cramail?), whose motto is: 
'*A tons vents," and who rails at the constancy of Angeralde. 
Philiris in the Isahelle (1610) of Paul Ferry represents the type 
when he exclaims: *'Moy qui n'aime sinon ce qui m'est profit- 
able." 

The most interesting and most highly developed represen- 
tative of the type is probably Hylas in the Astree (42) the 
smiling dilettante of love, the theorician of inconstancy as a 
rule of conduct. Throughout the novel his capricious and witty 
attacks upon the apotheosis of woman and the hollow unreality 
of shepherd love serve as an antidote to the abstract and sub- 
limated theories of Celadon. And in his conduct he puts his 
theories into practice. For example, in the third book (second 
volume) where Clorion is in love with Cyrene, he makes Hylas 
his confident. Hylas encourages him and promises to serve as 
his ambassador and advocate with the lady but, like Tircis in 
the Melite, he betrays the faith of his friend. He falls in love 
with Cyrcene and adds her to the already formidable number 
of his amorous conquests. The mental debate on friendship 
versus love in which Hylas indulges (L. 217) is quite in line 
with the debate portrayed in the monologue of Tircis at the end 
of the third scene of the first act of the Melite and the conclu- 



sion is the same, namely, that in love matters, sentiment of the 
friend must give way before the passions of the lover. This 
idea is found more precisely stated in the comedy which Mare- 
chal composed on the basis of the Hylas episodes in the Astree: 
L'Inconstance d' Hylas (43). 

L 'amour de Periandre augmente mon ennuie, 

Ma flamme de ses feux, tient la force et la vie, 

Montrons-luy qu'en amour tout effort est permis. 

Qu' Hylas pour estre amant, ne connoit point d'amy. 
And Tircis in the M elite (I. 3) gives utterance to precisely the 
same sentiments: 

En matiere d 'amour rien n 'oblige a tenir, 

Et les meilleurs amis, lorsque son feu les presse 

Font bientot vanite d'oublier leurs promesses (44). 

In 1627 Hon. d'Urfe brought Hylas on the stage in his 
Sylvanire. As in the Melite, — the play opens with a discus- 
sion between two friends about love. Aglante, deeply in love 
with Sylvanire, is here confronted with the smiling and cynical 
Hylas in the same way as Eraste and Tircis in the first scene of 
Corneille's play. The whole dispute, which can be traced to 
Italian models runs along the same general lines (45). 

And here is found the connecting link between the type of 
the love-sceptic (Monophile, Dagoncin, Euphues, Hylas, Tircis, 
etc.) and the story of the two Rival Friends. Before Corneille 
already, as exemplified above, the light-hearted sceptic in love 
had been identified with the faithless friend. Corneille's Tircis 
is a counterpart of these well-know^n fiction characters rather 
than his own portrait. In 1660, Corneille himself perceived that 
his Tircis was not altogether **vraysemblable." He said in his 
Examen de Melite: Tircis, qui est 1' honnete homme de la 
piece, n' a pas V esprit moins leger que les deux autres." (Fhilis 
and Eraste). 

There is every reason to conclude that Corneille, composing 
his first play, should have shown toward the conventional types 
and scenes of the literature of his time much of that docility 
which he was to display in after years, in matters of far greater 
moment, when his mastery of the art had won recognition. Even 
granted that he attempted self -portrayal with his Tircis, he 
only succeeded in reproducing a w^ell-known character of con- 
temporary fiction, placed in a traditional situation, struggling 
with the much exploited ''love versus friendship" problem. 



THE LETTER-DEVICE AND THE MADNESS OF ERASTE 
The plot of the Melite contains two other fundamental ele- 
ments: the use of forged letters and the madness of Braste. 
Reference to the outline of the play, given above, shows that 
Eraste in order to balk his rival, forges letters from Melite to 
Philandre. These letters, falling into the hands of Tircis are 
the pivot upon which the plot turns. No attempt has ever been 
made to connect both these episodes with Corneille's life; con- 
sideration of them may therefore be limited to a search in con- 
temporary literature for the models upon which they were con- 
structed. 

The letter-device was very popular with the authors of the 
period. It is sufficient to open any novel to find love letters 
used for all purposes. The Astree, notably, is full of them and 
many go to the wrong address. The novel begins with a letter 
stratagem very similar to the one used by Corneille. Alcippe, 
father of Celadon, has a young shepherd, Squilindre, prepare 
**une lettre contrefaite" in order to produce an estrangement 
between Astree and his son. In the fifth volume (book 11) 
Squilindre prepares another forged letter, from Sigismond to 
Dorinde, at the behest of king Gondebaut. In like manner 
lEraste, in the Francion of Sorel forges a letter with the same 
fraudulent intentions and the father of Florigene in Les Re- 
ligieuses Amours de Florigene et de Meleagre, makes use of 
the same trick in order to create a misunderstanding between 
his daughter and Meleagre, her lover (46). In many cases the 
letters are genuine and come into the possession of the heroine 
or of her lovers causing jealousy or despair. So, for example, 
in the fourth book of the first volume of the Astree, Semire 
learns of the love of Celadon and Astree through a lost letter. 
From the novels the use of letters in the interests of the 
plot passed into the plays. In the Dorise of Hardy, which, as 
has been shown above, contains many important elements of the 
Melite plot, Licanor makes use of a letter to arouse the jeal- 
ousy of Dorise and thus gain an advantage over his more for- 
tunate rival Salmacis. In the Amaranthe of Gombauld, (play- 
ed 1623, published 1628) Orante prepares a false letter pur- 
porting to come from the goddess Diane, by which he hopes to 
have his rival condemned to death. That the use of letters to 
create jealousy was a popular device with playwrights is proved 
by the fact that it occurs in many plays composed before or 



after the Melite: Les Vendanges de Suresne (du Ryer), 
Celie and L'Heureuse Constance (Rotrou), La Mort des En- 
fants d'H erode (La Calprenede) etc. 

The forged letters upon which the plot of Corneille's first 
comedy hinges is then one from that extensive repertory of de- 
vices, letters, rendez-vous, oracles, magic mirrors, boasted fav- 
ors, etc., out of which contemporary writers spun the tangled 
webs of their novels and plays. They are devoted to the same 
purpose, triumph over a rival, and they are all used in about 
the same way and generally with the same outcome : Seeing 
the result of these tricks, the perpetrator, overcome by remorse, 
becomes temporarily insane, while the victim, as a matter of 
course gives way to his despair and contemplates suicide. 

The adventures of the lovers in the Melite follow this 
course. Having read the letters forged by Braste, which prove 
the love of Melite for Philandre, Tircis runs away, his mind 
intend upon suicide. At least such was the action in the earlier 
versions in which one reads these lines, removed in later editions : 
Et mes pieds me porteront sous eux en quelque lieu desert, 
En quelque lieu sauvage a peine decouvert 
Ou ma main d'un poignard achevera le reste, 
Et pour suivre Tarret de mon destin funeste, 
Je repandrai mon sang. 

Melite hearing a false report of Tircis' death falls in a 
swoon and, for the moment, is believed to be dying. The car- 
rier of the forged letters hastens to Eraste and reproaches him 
with the death of the lovers. Eraste, filled with remorse for his 
crime, becomes insane. Both the episode and the treatment of 
it in the Melite are quite in harmony with the literary conven- 
tions of the time. 

In his Examen de Melite of 1660, Corneille confessed that 
the madness scenes of his first play were not original: **La 
folic d 'Eraste n'est pas de meilleure trempe. Je la condamnois 
des lors en mon ame; mais comme c' etoit un ornement de 
theatre qui ne manquoit jamais de plaire et se faisoit souvent 
admirer, j'affectai volontiers ces grands egarements." (47). 

During the quarrel of the Cid, one of Corneille 's bitterest 
opponents, Claveret, wrote : * ' Ceux qui consideront bien vostre 
fin de Melite, c'est a dire la frenesie d 'Eraste, que tout le monde 
avoue franchement estre de vostre invention, et qui verront le 
peu de rapport que ces badineries ont avec ce que vous avez 



derobe, jugeront sans doute que le commeneement de la Melite 

n' est pas une piece de vostre invention (48). Claveret 

means, of course, that the ^'frenesie d' Eraste" was only one 
more proof of Corneille's lack of originality in the Melite. And, 
in fact, the madness device was one of the commonplaces of the 
literature of the times, (49) which was especially prevalent in 
plays at the time that Corneille wrote his **coup d' essai." 
Eraste, overcome by remorse, believes that the earth has burst- 
ed and that he stands before the Styx. He takes his helper 
Cliton, for Charon, who, he believes, refuses him passage over 
the river of the dead. Now, Charon's refusal to take aboard 
the souls of those lovers who were killed by love, was a stock 
theme of the sixteenth and of the early seventeenth century. 
The popularity of the situation goes back to the well-known 
sonnet of Olivier de Magny, which, according to the testimonial 
of G. Colletet, in his Traite du Sonnet, was copied and learned 
by heart by every lover of poetry: 

Magny. 
Hola, Charon, Charon, nautonnier infernal! 

Charon. 
Qui est cet importun qui si presse m' appelle? 

Magny. 
C est r esprit eplore d' un amoureux fidele, 
Lequel pour bien aimer n' eust jammais que du mal. 

Charon. 
Que cherches tu de moy? 

Magny. 

Le passage fatal. 
Charon. 
Quel est ton homicide? 

Magny. 

O demande cruelle! 
Amour m' a fait mourir. 

Charon. 
Jamais dans ma nasselle 
Nul subjet a 1' amour je ne conduis a val. 

Magny. 
Et de grace, Charon, recoy-moy dans ta barque. 

Charon. 
Cherche un autre nocher, car ny moy, ny la Parque 
N' entreprenons jamais sur ce maistre des Dieux. 



Magny. 
J ' iray done maugre toy ; car j ' ay dedans nion ame 
Tant de traicts amoureux, tant de larmes aux yeux, 
Que je seray le fleuve, et la barque et la rame. 

In the Melite the supposedly dead lover to whom a passage 
over the Styx is refused, pretends to fight ghosts and gods, and 
to inspire terror and confusion in the infernal regions. This 
situation is found worked out more at length than in the Melite 
in Ph. Desportes' La mort de Rodomont, et sa descente aux en- 
ters, partie imitee de V Arioste, partie de V invention de V 
auteur, (50) and in various plays of the time as, for instance, 
in Hardy's Alcmeon ou la vengeance feminine and in A. Mar- 
eschal's La genereuse Allemande (1630). The recovery of 
Corneille's hero from his spell of madness also follows closely 
the convention of the stage of the period as exemplified by de 
Viand's Pirame et Thishe, Mairet's Sylvie, Rotrou's Hypo- 
condriaque and other plays (51). 

THE OTHER CHARACTERS OF THE MELITE 

The nurse who plays an important part in the recovery of 
Braste also belongs in the list of conventions which had long 
been presented upon the French stage. It was a traditional 
character played generally by a masked man. In the comedy 
of the sixteenth century, to be sure, the nurse-character is rath- 
er rare for the reason that the old woman of the play was gen- 
erally a **femme d 'intrigue" of the Celestina type. She plays 
however, a small role in the Fidele of Larrivey and a ridicu- 
lous one as Marian in L'Escolier. But in the tragedy composed 
in imitation of the ancients, she took a more important part in 
the action, as in the Medee of La Peruse, the Lucrece of Nico- 
las Filleul (1566), La Carthaginoise of Montchrestien, etc. 
She even pays for her interference in the action with her life 
as in the Tyr et Sidon of de Schelandre (1608 and 1628). 

She appears in the tragi-comedy as a distributor of good 
counsels, favoring or combatting the love of the hero or heroine. 
In Theophile de Viand's Pyrame et Thishe, the nurse, Ber- 
siane oversees the conduct of Thisbe whom she counsels and re- 
proaches in quite maternal fashion. She appears in the tragi- 
comedy Clotilde of Jean Prevost (1613), in Jean Auvray's 
Marsilie (1609, republished as L'Innocence Decouverte, 1628) 
where she plays an important role and shares the sentence of 



banishment which has been pronounced against her mistress. In 
a number of other plays — especially in those of Hardy and in the 
Heureux Naufrage of Rotrou — she is the counsellor and con- 
fidante and, in some cases the *'entremetteuse." Nowhere does 
she become a comic character, nor is she such in the Melite 
except at the very end. Everywhere else in the play she ap- 
pears as a woman, full of worldly wisdom, counselling Melite 
with the solicitude of a mother and in fact taking the place of 
the heroine's mother who is mentioned two or three times but 
does not appear upon the stage. She is really Melite 's confi- 
dante and when Corneille in the GalSrie du Palais metamor- 
phoses the nurse into the Suivante, it is more her name that has 
changed than her conduct. 

Fournel (52) attributes to Corneille a transformation of the 
nurse's role: C'est encore P. Corneille qui, dans ses premieres 
comedies, a donne a la nourrice le role le plus caracterise. Fam- 
iliere avec Melite, qu'elle tutoie, sa confidente et son inter- 
mediaire, tres prudente, etc. The typical nurse-character as 
presented by Corneille was however fully sketched by Hardy in 
his Felismene, Dorise, Fregonde, Gesippe, Alcmeon, Panthee, 
etc. In the Dorise^ the Fregonde, and the Gesippe especially 
is she presented as the sort of maternal confidant who advises 
and comforts the heroines quite in the fashion of the Nourrice 
in the Melite. In the Gesippe (Act I., sc. 2) she admonishes 
the heroine: 

Mais madame, il ne faut qu'une fille en cela 
Montre si clairement la passion qu'elle a, etc. 
and in the Melite she sounds a similar warning : 

Une fille qui voit et que voit la jeunesse 

Ne s'y doit gouverner qu'avec beaucoup d'adresse. 

The conventional character of the nurse in Corneille 's first 
comedy is made more apparent by the two young women of the 
play who, compared with her, are relatively realistic creations. 
Melite is represented as a true, honest, and reserved though 
somewhat tenderhearted maiden who has little need of the 
worldly-wise counsels which the nurse gives her. Her sentimen- 
tality is lightened by a shade of irony; she is always ready with 
a witty answer and she is not at all disposed to be carried away 
by the flowery compliments of Eraste. Cloris is less reserved 
and less sentimentally inclined. She is distinguished by practi- 



cal sense, and, although capricious, she remains very positive in 
her \ie\vs on lovers and their passions. 

When Eraste has sent the forged letters which he claims to 
have been written by Melite to Philandre, all the characters of 
the play vie mth one another in credulity. Philandre does not 
question for a moment the authentici+y of these letters brought 
to him by a messenger whom he does not know, from a young 
lady whom he has never met. Tircis, having seen the letters, 
seeks no explanation but immediately begins to contemplate sui- 
cide. Melite waits for no verification of the report of the death 
of Tircis but promptly faints, while Eraste immediately becomes 
insane at the news of the double tragedy. Cloris alone remains 
calm and intelligent enough to do the sensible and obvious 
thing; she shows the letters to Melite who denies having writ- 
ten them. In this way she brings the imbroglio to an end and 
her ** common sense" lends probability to her marriage at the 
end of the play with Eraste after he had been sufficiently pun- 
ished for his duplicity. Eraste was rich as indicated by differ- 
ent allusions in the play, while she, like her brother, Tircis, was 
little blessed with worldly goods. 

Different as they are, the two young girls, the tender but 
inconstant Melite, the practical but capricious Cloris, are both 
^* young girls." Without attempting any profound psychologi- 
cal analysis, Corneille succeeded in endowing his two heroines 
with such characteristics and such features of the young girl 
type that they are enough to clearly differentiate his comedy 
from that of the sixteenth century. The role is rare in the comedy 
of the sixteenth century. In most cases there is no place for 
her in the immoral plots, and when she does appear, she bears 
few of the characteristics of the modern '* young girl" but 
rather resembles the young women of the Italian stage who show 
no reserve in love but are apparently ready to receive their 
lover or lovers immediately upon terms of the greatest intimacy. 
They have neither delicacy nor even decency. To this \ype of 
young women belong, for example,' 'the Genevieve of Les Con- 
tens (Odet de Turnebe) Grassette of Les EscoUers (Perrin), 
Antoinette of La Reconnue (Belleaii), etc. 

Corneille then, in the Melite, drew two young women of a 
more elevated and refined type notwithstanding a few rather 
dubious scenes which were removed in later editions of the play. 
However, even here, it is easy +o exaggerate his originality for, 



between the comedies of the sixteenth century and this, his first 
play, came the pastoral plays and the pastoral and sentimental 
novels, which, with all their unreal and verbose sentimentality 
of shepherd love, had established a finer conception of the young 
girl type (53) Melite resembles many a sentimental and confid- 
ing shepherdness of pastoral novel and plays of the 1600-1630 
period. The capricious and practical Cloris too has her proto- 
type in quite a number of shepherdesses who are changeable, 
capricious and full of daring such as, for example, the Stelle of 
the Astree. From the pastoral literature the finer type of 
young girl passed into the novels and stories, taken of pretend- 
ing to be taken from contemporary life. One finds in them 
young girls with the same characteristics, the same attitude to- 
ward the flowery compliments of their lovers as in the Melite 
and in the other early plays of Corneille. So, for instance, in 
Les Amours d' Eurymedon et de Lydic, the eighth story of 
de Rosset's Histoires des amans volages de ce temps (54). 
Eurymedon finds, during a ball, occasion to present his homages 
to Lydie : ^ ' Ce f ut la qu ' il luy dist qu ' anime des louanges que 
tout le monde rendoit a son merite, mais plus encores des eclats 
de Divinite, que luy mesme voyoit luyre en son beau visage, il 
venoit pour luy sacrifier ses volontez. II la conjuroit de jetter 
les yeux plutost sur 1' excez de son amour, que sur son merite, 
et de ne dedaigner point de le tenir desormais au rang de ceux 
qui luy ofEroient tous les jours leurs libertez. Lydie qui avoit 
deja quelque inclination a vouloir du bien a ce Cavalier, quoy 
qu* elle le dissimulast, fit au commencement paroitre quelque 
petit traict d/^. Tigueur, ainsi que ces belles font ordinairement, 
et luy diet que si le bruict luy donnoit quelque louange, on de- 
voit attribuex ceste gloire plustost a V opinion qu* a la verite. 
Et pour le regard de la divinite dont il luy parloit, elle n* estoit 
pas si vaine, qu' elle ne recogneust bien que ces discours estoient 
proferez par forme de raillerie, et non par dessein-de la louer. 
ft' est pourquoy voyaiit que les louanges qu'- il luy donnoit 
estoient feintes, elle jugeoit aussi que ses volontez qu' il luy 
presentoit ne pouvoient estre que feintises. Eurymedon repart, 
et dit qu' elle offensoit par trop sa beaute, qui, veritablement 
belle, ne pouvoit produire que des desseins pour la servir. lis 
eussent continue ce discours : mais parce que Lydie craignoit que 
quelque une de ses compagnes ne tendist 1' oreille, avec un doux 



sousris pria Eurymedon de remettre ceste dispute en un autre 
lieu." (p. 424-25). 

Again the same situation as in the Melite and other early- 
plays of Corneille: a lover paying conceited compliments to a 
sweetheart rather scornful of his hyperbolic language, is found 
in other stories of de Rosset, as in Les Amours d' Amador et 
de la helle HypoUte. {Amans volages de ce temps, p. 464-65) : 
Tant de rares dons et.tant de qualitez qui luysoient sur le beau 
visage d' Hypolite, estoient autant de filets qui lioient estroicte- 
ment la liberte de ce Cavalier, et qui luy ostoient la parolle. 
Enfin sa langue venant a se delier, son coeur profera ce discours 
plein esgallement d' Amour et de respect. Si je pouvois (belle 
Hypolite) dire aussi belles parolles, que vostre beaute me donne 
de belles pensees, je m' efforcerois de vous representer et vostre 
merite et ma passion. Mais ou trouveroit on un esprit aussi 
disert, que vostre corps est beau, afin de vous rendre des louan- 
ges semblables a vos perfections? II faut advouer que cela 
estant impossible, je les dois seulement admirer, de peur de les 
prof aner en les louant : Heureux si en estant adorateur, vostre 
divinite re gar doit d' un oeil favorable les voeux, et permettoit 
les sacrifices, que le devoir et la cognoissance m' obligent desor- 

mais de luy rendre La Belle qui avoit desja considere la 

beaute et la grace de ce Cavalier, et qui se sentoit aucunement 
ambrasee d' un feu auquel nostre consentement sert d' amorce, 
fit semblant de premier abord de n' entendre point ses paroles. 
Neantmoins avec un doux sousris elle luy fit ceste responce: Si 
les hommes estoient aussi veritables que dissimulez, vous me 
feriez (Monsieur) desja entrer en quelque vaine gloire. Mon 
peu de merite, et la croyance que j'ay, que c' est pour donner 
carriere a vostre bel esprit, feront que je tiendray ce langage 
ainsi indifferent . . . . " 

Ironical verses against flowery love-declarations in the sam^ 
style as found in the Melite occur in the volume of miscellan- 
eous verse, Le Banquet des Muses of the Rouen lawyer Jean 
Auvray (1623) : Here too a complimentary courtier suffers a 
more or less sincere rebuff from his lady: 



Le courtisan : 



Mais r ame qui est bien assise 

N' astreint qu' en bon lieu sa franchise; 

Elle n ' a poinct de passion 



Si non pour la perfection; 
Et si la cire de ses aisles 
Se fond aux vives estincelles 
: ,D' une rare et grande beaute, 
Benissant sa temerite 
Elle fait sa gloire et son lucre 
D/ un si honorable sepulchre, 
• . Bien heureuse de s' abismer 

En si grande et fameuse mer. 

Ne vous estonnez done, madame, 
_ • . Si la vive et charmeuse flamme 

Qui sort de vos yeux, mes soleils, 
M' embrazent de feux nonpareils, 
Je cerche au mal qui me possede 
En vous mon unique remede, 
Et si au fort de mes douleurs 
J' implore vos rares faveurs/' 

La dame : 

Monsieur, ces facondes merveilles 

Dont vous repaissez mes oreilles 

Ne me touchent point jusqu 'au coeur, 

Je croy que d' un style moqueur, 

Passant de V honneur la barriere, 

Vostre esprit se donne carriere, 

Et que toutes ces passions, 

Ces beautez, ces perfections, 

Ces feux, cet amour, ce martire, 

Sont fragments de vostre bien dire 

Et r ornement de vos discourse ' (p. 241). 

We see then that the common sense of the young girls in 
Corneille's M elite was not without examples in the literature 
of the period, and that their anti-preciosity bears resemblance 
to the attitude of other contemporary heroines of fiction and 
poetry. 

It is reasonably certain that CorneiUe, in composing his 
first play, looked about him for material. The initial story of 
a lover supplanted by his friend in the affections of a young 
woman; the letters forged by the disappointed lover, the mad- 
ness of Eraste, his subsequent recovery all that appears repeat- 



edly in the literature of the early seventeenth century. The 
characters are equally French. A long line of ancestors pre- 
ceded the love-sceptic Tircis ; and Eraste does not differ from 
the ordinary shepherd-rival. The young girls are clearly re- 
flections of the novels of contemporary life of the times; and 
the nurse was a convention of even longer standing. The plot 
and development of the Melite are neither absolutely original 
nor can they be interpreted, with any degree of certainty as 
entirely auto-biographical. At the same time the play does, not seem 
to be a servile imitation dependent on a single source. It seems a 
rather skilful gathering of more or less traditional scenes and 
situations and types; an assembling of reminiscences from Cor-. 
neille's reading rather than any direct transcript from the life 
which he observed and in which he took part. (55). Yet, he 
stated in his Examen de Melite, in 1660: La nouveaute de ce 
genre de comedie dont il n' y a aucun exemple dans aucune 

iangue f urent sans doute la cause de ce bonheur sur- 

prenant et qui faisoit alors tant de bruit. '^ (56). The differ- 
ence of the Melite from the contemporary plays, on which Cor-, 
neille prided himself in 1660, lies rather in the fact that he 
brought, or rather attempted to bring, on the stage characters 
from the France he knew, than in the invention of a new plot. 
Yet, in this respect he had been preceded by the great number 
of novels which treated of contemporary themes, and, frequently, 
in the same setting as in Corneille's early productions: in Paris. 

CORNEILLE'S EARLY PLAYS AND THE NOVELS OF 

THE TIME 

Corneille's Melite differs from the stage of his day in that 
the scene of this pastoral love-imbroglio is laid in Paris. "La 
sc^ne est a Paris.'' But the love-story of the two rivals — Eraste 
and Tircis, — is not in any way related to this setting ; it remained 
a pastoral intrigue, pervaded by the traditional pastoral gallan- 
try. Corneille's characters behave in Paris just as do the happy 
or love-lorn shepherds in the shady groves of d'Urfe's Forez. 
They walk along the beaten path of the pastoral in the rivalries 
which are characteristic of this type of fiction; they adopt the 
customary tricks of disappointed lovers; they fall into the cus- 
tomary madness or despair, and end their arduous courtship 
with the no less conventional pairing off at the denouement. 

The young Corneille was in perfect good faith, no doubt, 



when .Jie. called his characters ' ' Parisians. ' ' At the time of the 
MiliU he was. a young lav/yer of the Provinces, who had no inti- 
mate acquaintance with the cultivated Parisian circles which he 
tried to depict. He did not find his types in the real life of the 
capital, for it was only later that he visited Paris for any consid- 
erable time. The anecdote related by Thomas Corneille and Fon- 
tenelle, stating that the nucleus of the Melite was furnished to 
the young Corneille by a personal adventure at Eou^n, impli- 
cates that he did not depict lovers from the refined Parisian 
drawing rooms, but from the more provincial surroundings of his 
native city. It is to be observed, as I have pointed out in the pre- 
ceding chapter, that rather than portraying types from Paris or 
from his own environment, he was largely reproducing charact- 
ers and situations from the contemporary fiction or from the con- 
temporary stage. 

Critics have generally attributed to Corneille, at the time of 
his early plays, a good deal of independent power of realistic ob- 
servation. He is said to have portrayed in them the ' ' precieux' ' 
society of his day. Yet, one finds in his early productions, es- 
pecially in the Melite and the Clitandre, a number of incidents 
and situations, which could not be taken directly from daily life. 
Tircis' credulity and Eraste's mythological madness, in his first 
play, cannot be classified as common traits of the "honnete 
homme." His heroes are closely akin to the shepherds of the 
then flourishing pastoral, to the '^gentleman" of the contempor- 
ary, sentimental and pastoral novels. Now, since Corneille was 
well acquainted with the literature of the epoch (57), it is clear 
enough that he viewed his ''contemporary" characters largely 
through literary prototypes, that he modeled them after the pat- 
tern of the "honnete homme", as he knew him through his read- 
ings. 

Corneille 's tendency toward the painting of contemporary 
life — which grows stronger and more balanced in the three plays 
following the Clitandre — had been exemplified before and after 
1630, by the parallel effort toward contemporaneity which can be 
traced in a great number of novels of the time, in those that un- 
dertook to depict "real life," (58) as seen, more or less, through 
the pastoral atmosphere. These novels present, in this respect, 
a marked contrast to the development in theatrical composition, 
which, from 1610 to about 1630, gave little or no place to the 
French life of the time. The great variety of dramatic forms 



pre\^lent at the beginning of the seventeenth century, all re- 
mained alien to the portrayal of the actual life of the epoch. The 
tragi-comedy showed a preference for historical or foreign sub- 
jects; the farce remained decidedly in the lower regions of life; 
the pastoral clung to its conventional setting of a shepherds' 
country; the tragedy reproduced the subject-matter taken from 
antiquity. 

There is no doubt that these novels, — ^which devoted much 
attention to contemporary life, — influenced the stage in this di- 
rection. It was quite a common practice during the early part 
of the seventeenth century to adapt the plot of a novel to the 
stage, and it has been said that the tragi-comedy, with all its ir- 
regularities, was essentially an attempt to condense in a few acts, 
all the adventures of a long heroic novel. Examples of such adap- 
tations are numerous. Hardy, for example, took his Dorise from 
de Rosset's Amans volages de ce temps; his Gesippe from Boccac- 
cio, etc.; Rotrou cut a play out of Sorel's Cleagenor et Doristee; 
du Ryer took his Lisandre et Caliste from a novel of d'Audiguier, 
and put Barclay's Argenis on the stage. The late-Greek novel 
of Tatios inspired his Clifophon, and Hardy used the same source 
for one of his lost plays. Du Hamel imitated in his tragedy 
Acouhar (1603), the novel of du Perier, Les Amours de Pistion. 
The Amou7^s de Dalchmion et de Deflore^ a novel of J. Philippes, 
is put on the stage as the Amours de Da^cmeon by Est. Bellone. 
Giboin took his tragi-comedy, Amours de Philandre et de Marizee, 
(1619) from de Iverveze's story of the same title (1598). The 
Astree was for years the source of plot material for de Scudery, 
Rayssiguier, and various others (59). The plajr^vrights of the 
time delved with eager hands into the treasures of fiction that 
the novels opened for them. 

The theories and examples of the novelists were thus bound 
to affect the composition of these plays as well as the literary at- 
mosphere in general. Now, during 'the 1600-1630 period, the 
novelists voiced many times the "need of turning to contemporary 
life for literary subjects and tried to put their theories into prac- 
tice in creating ''real" men and women. Their stories from 
"real" life, however, continued to be filled with elements taken 
from the romances of chivalry, from the Greek or the pastoral 
novel. A magician, a wonderful shipwreck, a glorious fight of 
the hero against overpowering odds, or even a satyr, appear in a 
tale, pretending to be " entirely true. ' ' This curious mixture of 



**vraysemblable'' and ^ ^ invraysemblable " is characteristic of tbe 
chaotic state of the literature of the time. Even in novels, which 
made a claim to truthfulness, the elements of real life and those 
of the pastoral or chivalric romance are strangely blended, 
Guillaume Coste for instance, in his Les Bergeries de Vesper (60) 
drew a picture — remarkable for the time — of the love adventures 
of some shepherds, who were, in reality, lovers from the class of 
the country nobility, with their characteristic customs. These 
lovers are adorned with shepherds' names, says the writer, 
'^pource qu'il faut qu'ils conduizent et gouvernent leurs pensees 
amoureuses, qui sont des troupeaux assez souvent malaisez a 
gouverner." The elements of reality are represented by clearly 
portrayed meetings and walks in the country, convivial feasts, 
and serenades; the elements from the pastoral tradition by fights 
with a satyr, wandering cavaliers, etc. 

When a novel of that type was put on the stage, it retained 
these characteristics and presented the same mixture of the real 
and the unreal. Hardy's play, Dorise, taken from de Rosset's 
Amans volages de ce temps, furnishes an example. The Persian 
names of some of his heroes have no more significance than the 
shepherd's names of the Bergeries de Vesper, for de Rosset claims 
to picture contemporary noblemen. He says that in his book 
' ' sous des noms empruntez sont contenus les Amours de plusieurs 
Princes, Seigneurs, Gentils-hommes, & autres personnes de marque, 
qui ont trompez leurs Maistresses, ou qui ont este trompez d'elles." 
The incidents of the story, and consequently of Hardy's play, are 
strikingly resemblant to those of Corneille's M elite. Two friends, 
Salmaces and Licanor, love Doris. During the absence of Sal- 
maces, the rival, Licanor, wins the girl for himself by lying and 
by a letter-trick. Salmaces runs off to the country and lives half- 
mad in a hermitage, where he is discovered by Sydere, who loves 
him. The ^'invraysemblable" elements are then introduced in 
this alleged '^vraysemblable" love-story in the form of a female 
magician, who discovers that the madness of Salmaces is occasion- 
ed by a secret charm. With her supernatural power, she brings 
him back to sanity and a double marriage ends the play. This 
work is relatively more real than much of the contemporary and 
later production. And for this, the influence of its source, — a 
novel of contemporary life — is largely responsible. 

In the period 1600-1630, when the general tendencies of the 
theater were either toward the pastoral or toward the extravagant 



tragi-comedy, these novels imitated thus, in a more or less con- 
ventional manner, the life of the time. But they limited them- 
selves to the love between noblemen and refined ladies, for they 
disdained "ces amours vulgaires qui ne se pratiquent qu'entre 
des ames de basse origine" (Timothee de Chi\la,c-Oeuvres, 1599). 
Princes and princesses appear only by exception. The ordinary 
characters are exactly those "honnestes gens" whom Corneille 
depicted in his first plays. In voicing their theories, in their 
prefaces, the novelists opposed the enormous influence of an- 
tiquity as well as the "foreign country" craze which later sent 
so many novel-heroes to Turkey or to unknown lands. 

The anonj^mous author of the Amours du brave Lydamas et 
de la belle Myrtille, (Toulouse, 1594) says that he depicts *'des 
Amours francois et non estrangers." And du Souhait in the 
novel, Poliphile et Mellonimphe (1598), argues: '^Qu'est il be- 
soign de mendier chez les anciens le tesmoignage des effects de 
1 'amour, puisque nostre siecle les faict naistre! Ne croirons nous 
plustost a nos yeux qu' a nos oreilles? Qui sont ceux 
tant amis de Tantiquite et ennemis de leur age, qui donnent 
vie a des histoires rapportees de nos peres, pour ensevelir celles 
qui naissent avec nous?" The author of La Constance d*Alisee 
et de Diane opposes the custom of using foreign settings in 
novels : ' ' Belles ames que la France a nourries et eslevees dans 
son sein, pourquoy allez-vous mendiant parmy les estrangers les 
ruynes d 'amour, pour en faire parade, laissant en depost a 
I'oubliance les plus remarquables tragedies de ce tyran, advenues 
entre les Francois?" While insisting on the necessity of finding 
inspiration in daily life, some novelists ask for more truth in the 
painting of love, for more ' ' vraysemblance. " The anonymous au- 
thor of the Amours de Melite et de Statiphile (1609), claims 
his adherence to these principles in these terms: "Helas, qu'il 
est besoign recourir aux masures de I'antiquite, remembrer les 
siecles passees, escheler les cieux com me nouveaux Promethees, 

pour y desrober quelque science d 'amour pour ne tenir 

compte des estranges accidens qu 'ordinairement nous produit 
I'exces d'une passion amoureuse, en nos contrees, en Tenclos de 

nos villes, et de nos maisons On ne verra pas dans mon 

livre, des evenemens tragiques, des fictions de Psyche avec son 
Cupidon, ny les ruses d'une Medee; mais la verite de ma passion, 
le progrez de mes amoureuses recherches et facheux accidens 
d'icelles, la fidelite d'un serviteur paye d'inconstance." The 



sieur de la Regnerye in the Amours de Lintason et de Palinoe 
(1601) follows the same theory. He declares that his story was 
''tres veritable", and that he told it " naivement. " 

Francois de Rosset in the Preface oi his Histoires tragiques 
de nostre Temps (1st ed. 1616) exclaimed as so many other novel- 
writers of the time: ''Ce ne sont pas des contes de Tantiquite 
fabuleuse, que je te donne (0 Prance mere de tant de beaux Es- 
prits, qui font rougir de honte et la Grece et 1 'Italic;) Ce sont 
des Histoires autant veritables que tristes et funestes. Les noms 
de la plupart des personnages sont seulement desguisez en ce 
Theatre, a fin de n'affliger pas tant les families de ceux qui en 
ont donne le suject " 

The last sentence refers to an important element of contem- 
poraneity in the novel of the beginning of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, the tendency to narrate actual events — sometimes embel- 
lished with very improbable incidents — to flatter influential no- 
blemen by making them the disguised heroes of a story. The 
numerous ''Romans a clef" thus created, fitted in with a similar 
tendency in the pastoral play, which, staged mostly in the castles 
of the nobles, in many cases pretended to put on the scene, under 
a disguise, the constant or fickle loves of a noble protector of let- 
ters. 

One of the stories of Bosset's Histoires Tragiques depicts 
some incidents from the life of Frangois de Lorraine, de Guise, 
*' Lieutenant General pour le Roy en Provence." In the Dedicace 

to him, it is said : ' ' vous estes 1 'autheur de la plus 

belle partie de cest ouvrage, Vostre valeur s'y est depeinte avec 
de si vives couleurs, que I'esclat en fait rougir de honte les plus 

valeureux de ce siecle II n 'est pas besoing de reciter 

en ceste Epitre ce que tout le monde sait admirer, puisque je I'ay 
fidellement descrit en 1 'une de ces Histoires " 

In a similar way, a great number of authors of the be- 
ginning of the seventeenth century described, under assumed 
names, the adventures of living personages. And this preoccu- 
pation was bound to give to their work a certain measure of real- 
ity and fidelity in the depicting of contemporary life. To this 
category of ''Romans a clef" belong, for example: Les amours 
de la helle du Luc of J. Prevost (1597). La Galatee et les adven- 
tures du Prince Astiages of A. Remy (1625) : — Histoire de la vie 
et de la mort d'Arthemise by Jean de Lannel (1621) ; — La Caritee 
of Gomberville (1621) ; — Le Cleandre d' Amour et de Mars of 



Pebrac de Montpesat (1620) ; — L'Arcadie Frangoise of Ollenix 
de Mont Sacre (1625) ; — Le Roman des chevaliers de la Gloire of 
de Rosset (1612) ; Eomant royal ou histoire de nostre temps 
of Piloust (1621) ;— Theatre d'Histoires of Phil, de Belleville 
(1610) ; — Cleodante et Hermdinde ou Histoire de la Cour of A. 
Humbert (1629) ; Endymion of Gombauld (1624) ; — Histoire des 
Amans volages de ce temps of de Rosset (1616) — Roman de la 
Cour de Bruxelles of Piiget de la Serre (1628) Polyxene of 
Moliere d' Essertines (1625) and other novels or collections of 
stories. 

Some authors claim that their stories are entirely true and 
even add in some cases, that they were actually copied from real 
life. Reze calls his Desespere content ement d' Amour (1599) an 
** Histoire veritable et advenue." So does du Souhait for his 
Amours de Poliphile et Mellonimphe (1599) and his Les Propri- 
etez d' Amour (1601). To the same class belong: Les amours 
d'Amisidore et de Chrysolite, ''histoire veritable ou est descrite 
I'inconstance des amoureux de ce temps" of du Bail (1623); — 
UOlympe d^ amour, histoire non fainte of Henri du Lisdam 
(1609) ; — Les fidelles et constant es amours de Lisdamus et de 
Cleonymphe of Henri du Lisdam (1615), where the hero is clear- 
ly the writer himself ; — the Histoire tragi-comique de nostre temps 
sous les noms de Lysandre et de Caliste of d'Audiguier (1615) ; — 
Les agr Sables diver sit ez d^ Amour of N. Moulinet (1613) ; — 
Le tableau des deserts enchantes of N. Piloust (1614) containing 
stories ''aussi pitoyables que veritables" — Marechal's La Chryso- 
lite ou le secret des romans (1627) — Les Amours de Philandre, 
gentilhomme Bourguignon, of Des Escuteaux (1621) — La Mort 
de V Amour oil se list la veritable et nouvelle histoire des amours 
de Calianthe et Florifile of Pr. Gauthier (1616), — L'Histoire des 
amours tragiques de ce temps of Isaac de Laffemas (1607) — and 
a number of other novels and collections of stories whose preten- 
sion to depict contemporary life is more or less justified. 

Men of greater renown than most of these now-forgotten 
novel-writers, acclaimed the theory. The pious and prolific bishop 
Camus reproached the authors of his time for disguising in 
ancient frocks, the incidents of daily life and love. He ventured 
his criticism as follows in the Preface of his Cleoreste, ''histoire 
franQoise-espagnoUe, representant le tableau d'une parfaite 

amitie" (1626) .vous a qui un evenement arrive en des 

lieux voysins, ou que vous frequentez d 'ordinaire, fait plaisir, 



aurez sans doute plus de plaisir d'ouir ce qui s'est passe aupres 
de vostre demeure, que si ce succes estoit avenu en des endroits 

plus esloignez Et cependant il y a des esprits je ne 

sgay comment faicts, qui ne peuvent se contenter que par le recit 
des histoires anciennes, encore que ce soient des choux cuits et 
recuits a tant de fois qu'ils excitent un desgoust plustost qu'ils 
ne donnent de Tappetit; ou si elles sont modernes, qui les veulent 
des pais si esloignez de leur connoissance qu'on n'en puisse avoir 

de certitude asseuree De moy, j' ay tousjours estime que 

nous ne devious point aller chercher si loing de nous ce qui estoit 
proche, soit pour les lieux, soit pour le temps, et qu'il ne falloit 
point emprunter des livres escrits ce que Ton peut pescher dans 
les evenements qui tombent devant nos yeux, et dont nous sommes 
temoins irreprochables. Cependant plusieurs escrivains ignorans 

ce secret pour multiplier leurs f antes en pensant bien 

faire desguisent a Tantique ce qui est moderne, habillent 

a I'estranger ce qui est domestique, mauvais tailleurs et cuisiniers. 
Mais aussi de releguer en Asie, en Affrique, ou en Amerique ce 
qui est avenu parmi nous, et feindre des religions profanes, ou 
des lieux que les Cosmographes ont de la peine a trouver dans 
leurs cartes, c'est une extremite qui ne peut estre appreuvee." 
(61). The heroes of the devout novelist, as a matter of fact, fre- 
quently belong to the middle-class of the time. G. Bayer {Pierre 
Camus und seine Bomane 1906) has shown that some of the stor- 
ies he narrates are based on actual incidents of Camus' own life 
or of that of his acquaintances. Other, however, have too strong 
a flavour of the " invraysemblable " to be a real picture of daily 
incidents truthfully observed. And frequently his confessed in- 
tention to prove in his tales the superiority of the religious voca- 
tion distorts his point of view. Notwithstanding these shortcom- 
ings, his numerous works were relatively more ' ' vraysemblable " 
than a great part of the contemporary literature and they in- 
creased, in this way, the growing tendency toward more truth in 
literary art. He was as much an outspoken enemy of the exag- 
gerations of the "roman d'aventure" and of the pastoral novel 
as Sorel or Mareschal. He even claimed that he wrote his works 
with the intention of combating their nefarious influence. ''Or, 
pour terrasser tant de livres fabuleux, je n 'entreprends pas mon 
combat de droit front, comme si je refutais des heresies. Car il 
n'est point besoin de se mettre en peine de prouver I'obscurite 
des tenebres, ni de montrer la faussete de ces romans, bergeries, 



( 



aventures, chevaleries et autres fatras, qui se conf essent fabuleux 
en leurs prefaces, et dont la lecture pleine de caprice, de vers, de 
feintes, d 'impossibilites, d 'absurdites, d 'enchantements, d 'ex- 
travagances, et pareilles bagatelles, fait assez connaitre I'imper- 
tinence. Ce serait, comme dit I'apotre, combattre contre I'air et 
courir sans but, ou tout au plus imiter cet empereur faineant qui 
ne faisait la guerre qu'aux mouches. De quelle fagon est-ce done 
que je tache de defaire mes adversaires? C'est par diversion et 
comme Jacob fit a Esau, par supplantation, mettant des revela- 
tions cbretiennes, veritables et utiles a la place de celles qui sont 
profanes, fabuleuses, et non seulement inutiles, mais, pour la plus 
grande part pernicieuses. " (62) Among his contemporary nov- 
els may be mentioned : Petronille, accident pitoyahle de nos jours 
(1610), La Memoir e de Darie (1620), Elise, evenement tragique 
de nostre temps (1621), Dorothee (1625), Flaminio et Caiman 
(1626), Aloph ou le Parastre malheureux, histoire fran^aise 
(1626), Honorat et Aurelio (1628), Marianne (1629), Les spec- 
tacles dliorreur, ou se decouvrent plusieurs tragiques effets de 
nostre siecle (1630), L'Amphithetre sanglant (1630), etc. In 
1629 Camus went to Rouen as vicar to the archbishop Francois 
de Harlay for whom, in 1633, Corneille wrote his ^^Excusatio." 
It is thus very likely that the poet knew Camus and his works at 
the very time that he was writing his Melite. 

Among the novels taking inspiration from contemporary life, 
a number are found which tell the adventures of lovers of the 
capital and of the court, and introduce certain parts of Paris as 
a setting. In view of Corneille 's portrayal on the stage of the 
same category of lovers in the same milieu, they may be styled 
forerunners in prose of his endeavour in verse. The anonymous 
Marianne de Filomele (1596) is called '* histoire advenue, il n'y 
a longtemps en ceste ville de Paris, ' ' Camus designates his Mari- 
anne ou V innocent e victime as an Evenement tragique, arrive 
au faubourg St. Germain, and his La pieuse Julie (1625) as an 
histoire parisienne. A number of novels relate incidents which 
occurred at the court, and sketch living courtiers under assumed 
names. The more psychological novels furnish, for instance, Les 
diver ses Affections de Minerve of d'Audiguier (1625), an inter- 
esting study of a young woman, an artful coquette, surrounded 
by her various suitors, like Corneille 's Veuve. The scene is laid 
in Paris, as it is for La Floride of du Verdier (1624) which pre- 
sents a similar subject. These two books lead us to that other 



study of a coquette, Chrysolite on le secret des romans of A. 
Mareschal (1627) in which ''Athens" is a transparent mask for 
Paris. In his Preface he defends strongly the " vray-semblable " 
and the contemporaneity of material. He finds in the novels of 
his time, *'rien de solide, rien de vraysemblable, rii qui se puisse 
rapporter aux moeurs et a la puissance des hommes, ou du veri- 
table cours du temps et des siecles Voyant .que jusques 

ici tous ceux qui se sont picquez en ce genre d'ecrire nous ont 
vendu le fard pour le vray teint, et ont donne une face a leurs 
livres, qui pour estre pleine de piperies, de mensognes et d'impos- 

sibilites, a pu entretenir et abuser beaucoup d 'esprits J 'ai 

voulu reduire a nostre portee ce faste menteur, et cet orgeuil qui 

ne sert que pour faire une pompe au dessus des nues Ici 

je n'ay rien mis qu'un homme ne peust faire, je me suis tenu 
dans les termes d'une vie privee, afin que chacun se peust mouler 
sur les actions que je descry, et je ne me suis mis de I'antiquite 
que pour donner une couleur estrangere au bien ou au mal de 
nostre temps." Sorel, who exercised a very potent influence in 
the direction of contemporaneity of material had attempted the 
portrayal of contemporary life before illustrating his theories in 
a satirical way with his Berger extravagant. His Palais d* An- 
gelic (1632) is composed of a number of love-stories, told by girls 
and young men, and each tale starts or finishes by an abduction. 
In his Preface he says: ''Je me suis esloigne du tout de ces his- 
toires monstrueuses qui n'ont aucune vraysemblance. Je ne rac- 
onte que des actions qui se peuvent faire selon le temps." One 
of the stories, Olynthe, (63) takes us to the fair of St. Germain, 
to the Gallerie du Palais, etc. His observations of the higher 
bourgeoisie are interesting in view of the appearance of these 
types on the stage a few years later. With Les Nouvelles Fran- 
coises (1623) he preserves to a certain extent the modernity of 
the subject, although he introduces too many " invraysemblable " 
adventures, atrocious fights with Turkish pirates, hidden treas- 
ures, shipwrecks, etc. Notwithstanding this concession to the 
taste of the time, some stories of the book take place in Paris, in 
the Tuilleries or the Bois de Vincennes, as for example, Les Trois 
Amans. Sorel, like the others, insists upon the necessity of turn- 
ing to contemporary subjects, and he uses the identical terms of 

Camus: "Beautez vous aurez sans doute plus de plaisir 

d 'entendre une histoire qui s'est passee en des lieux que vous fre- 
quentez ordinairement, qu'une autre, dont tous les succes seroient 



reservez en d'autres endroits. Cependant plusieurs qui ignorant 
ce secret, ne vous donnent que des histoires des plus esloignez, 
lesquelles ne vous scauroient si bien toucher Tame, et commettent 
une faute en pensant bien faire, desguisent le plus souvent ce 
qui est avenu en nostre contree en I'habillant a I'estrangere. Bien 
qu' ils ayent acquis du renom, je ne les veux pas suivre en cela, 
croyant que la gloire ne leur a pas este donnee judicieusement." 
(Page 555). In his Francion (1622) Sorel repeats, in satyrical 
form, the demand for contemporary material and greater "vray- 
semblance." He speaks of a shepherd-novel in the following 
terms: '^Les bergers y sont philosophes et font Tamour de la 
meme sorte que le plus gallant homme du monde. A quel propos 
tout ceci ? Que 1 "auteur ne donne-t-il a ces personnages la qualite 
de chevaliers bien nourris? Leur fit il, en cet etat, faire des mir- 
acles de prudence et de bien dire. Ton ne s'en etonneroit point 
comme d'un prodige. L'histoire veritable ou feinte, doit repre- 
senter les choses au plus pres du naturel; autrement c'est une 
fable qui ne sert qu'a entretenir les enfants au coin du feu, non 
pas les esprits murs, dont la vivacite penetre partout." And 
later on in his Bihliotheque Francoise (64) he repeats while pass- 
ing judgment on his o^ai early novels : " Ce ne sont point de ces 
grands sujets qu'on appelle Heroiques, ou il ne paroist que des 
Koys et des Conquerans sur la scene: Ce sont des avantures de 
quelques personnes de mediocre condition, mais on y trouvera 
possible de la vray-semblance, et le stile est accommode au sujet." 

The theory of the description of contemporary life in fiction 
had thus been voiced and exemplified abundantly in a number 
of novels which were in favour at the time of Corneille's youth. 
This constant demand for contemporaneity and truth in literary 
art — also reiterated by Theophile de Viau — hardly could remain 
without influence upon the stage of the time. Yet, as far as is 
known, it was only about 1630 that, rather suddenly, French con- 
temporary life appeared on the stage. It is quite probable that 
before that date, Hardy treated in some of his lost plays subject 
matter taken from the life of the times. If rediscovered, they 
would illuminate fully the meaning of Corneille's words, that he 
began to write following the example of ''feu Hardy." Since 
Hardy constanth^ took subjects from novels and novelettes, it 
would be difficult to conceive that in his restless hunt for sub- 
jects to be staged in his hundreds of plays, he would have left un- 
touched the rich and inviting source of inspiration to be found 



in the novel of contemporary tendencies, of which he made use 
for his Dorise. Among his known plays some are derived from 
novels and stories, from Cervantes, Boccaccio Greene, etc. Par- 
ticularly significant is it that Hardy's Dorise — as pointed out 
above — is very similar in characterization, construction, and at- 
mosphere to Corneille's Melite. Corneille's early plays have a 
common trait: they all stage a pastoral love-imbroglio more or 
less successfully interwoven with a realistic setting. Exactly in 
this, lies their striking resemblance to a number of contemporary 
novels which show the same method of composition. 

The problem which Corneille, at his debut, had to solve was, 
to combine a certain measure of contemporary truth with an arti- 
ficial pastoral love-imbroglio. He solved it as before him novel- 
writers had done by dropping the most unreal scenes of the pas- 
toral plots, the echoes, the satyrs, the magicians, and by trans- 
posing the remaining love-story into a well-known setting. That 
his sense of the ''real" was, at first, not always sure, is shown by 
his introduction into the plot of his Melite, such hackneyed and 
mythological scenes as those of the madness of Eraste. Yet we 
cannot doubt that he was helped in his attempt to depict contem- 
porary life by examples of similar tendencies in the ''quelques 
modern es" which he confessed to have read at the time of his 
debut (65). 

For even the pastoral literature of the times was not alto- 
gether artificial and unrealistically imaginative. Under the im- 
pulse toward the vraysemblable and toward more fidelity to na- 
ture which grows stronger in the first decades of the seventeenth 
century, all that was actual and living in the pastoral plays of 
the time was brought to the foreground and disengaged from the 
unessential and traditional episodes of Spanish and Italian origin. 
After all, the pastoral plays of the time were more real than we 
now suppose. They had a certain bearing upon the life of the 
period which time has dimmed for us and made difficult to esti- 
mate. 

To us, no relation at all seems to exist between those tradi- 
tional satyrs, echoes, sighing shepherds, and capricious shepherd- 
esses, and the real men and women of the epoch. Yet, many writ- 
ers of pastorals had symbolical intentions and brought on the 
stage real characters disguised as shepherds. They wrote for 
court-circles and affected to represent *'les aventures de quel- 
ques grands princes" (66) under the transparent veil of the 



shepherd's tale then in vogue. In the introduction of the Astree, 
Honore d'Urfe says that nobody ought to wonder at the refined 
language of his shepherds as they are no real rustics, but well- 
bred noblemen and women, who only took on this disguise to en- 
able them to lead a more varied and interesting life. He defends 
his symbolical attitude by pointing to the theater of the time, 
where, he says, the shepherds were dressed in lace and silk, and 
carried a gilded shepherd's crook. La Mesnardiere, in his 
PoeUque (1640), holds that the poets should lend only fine feel- 
ings and sublime discourse to the shepherds. He takes the point 
of view that a pastoral play is a description of the court, where 
it is impossible to find "des dames laides et stupides." 

For the courtier of 1600-1630, the dreamland of Arcadia, the 
realm of love, was not blossoming "somewhere out of the world." 
It was the country dreamed of by every perfect lover, a country 
of eternal flowers, clear streams, mysterious woods, and glorious 
evenings, through Tvhich a sublimated love would lead them. It 
had for them the reality of a poetic fancy, gilding the cold 
facts of daily life. They adopted this disguise, these names, and 
these manners, half through fashion, half through sympathy for 
its artificial but refined poetry. Half sincere, half make-believe 
in play, they identified themselves with the shepherds of the pas- 
torals, who were all "perfect courtiers" in pseudo-rustic dis- 
guise. They named their sweethearts after these shepherdesses 
of their favorite stories. Circles and academies were founded 
where the fictitious shepherd's existence passed from the stage 
into actual life. "Tous etaient frappes." Court-circles became 
a sort of continuous masquerade, in which poets and men of 
learning, the rich bourgeoisie and officials, and even grave the- 
ologians and dashing generals took part. All followed the vogue. 
The influence of the Astree on the Hotel de Rambouillet is well 
known. The German princes offered to d'Urfe the presidency of 
their shepherds' circle, while Vauquelin des Yveteaux lived in 
the park of his hotel, in shepherd's dress, wearing a splendid 
straw-hat with an inside of red satin, and guided through the 
well-kept alleys an herd of imaginary sheep (67). There was, in 
a word, a perpetual reaction from the pastoral plays and novels 
upon the elegant life, and from this upon the literature. The 
general tendency to the rustic disguise was not exclusively an 
absurd and paradoxial fashion. It corresponded to a certain 
reality in the mind of the spectators. It had a symbolical bear- 



ing on real life, and the love-stories represented seemed not so 
absurdly unreal as they now seem to us. The audience often felt, 
no doubt, that a real love-story was being told under the pastoral 
mask. And it was precisely this love-story which acquired a 
greater directness and reality as 1630 is approached. It is this 
tendency toward actuality and verisimilitude, toward stressing 
the love-story in the pastoral play more than the conventional ac- 
cessories which, no doubt, was fostered by the novels of the time 
which depicted, more or less successfully, the actual life of the 
times. 

Some hesitating realism appears already here and there in 
the pastoral plays just before 1630 ; some of them announce the 
coming change by some of their scenes or by their general spirit. 
A few examples may be given : the pastoral play Aristhene of P. 
Troterel (1626) — a writer whose publisher was usually Corneille's 
friend David du Petit- Val — almost attained an imitation of reality 
in the scene of a trial where no solemn druid priest pronounces 
a heaven-sent sentence, as in the pastoral plays, but where a real 
judge appears surrounded by his court. The cross-examination 
which ensues is in real comedy-style. The sieur de la Morelle in 
his Philis ou V amour contraire (1627-28) paints the conflicting 
aspirations of a prudent father and a liberty-loving daughter in 
a way denoting a closer observation of reality than was the cus- 
tom generally on the stage of the period. And Mareschal, who 
with his novel Chrysolite had already entered a plea for vray- 
semblance, — derived from the adventures of light-hearted Hylas 
in the Astree, a pastoral which approaches the style of the com- 
edy L'Inconstance d' Hylas (1629-30) (68). The chorus and the 
echoes disappear from the plays before or around that time (69). 
The satyr already humanized by Hardy, has no role at all in 
some tragi-comedie-pastorales (70). 

Thus we perceive how the fundamental love-story of the pas- 
toral play disengaged itself from the superfluous and unreal em- 
bellishments and episodes. This can be explained by the greater 
demand for realism fostered by the novel of contemporary ten- 
dencies, by the ironical attacks upon the invraysemblable of the 
pastoral literature by Sorel, Mareschal, and Camus, while it was 
no doubt greatly fostered by the Ballets wherein types of the 
real life of the time appeared (71). When the exaggerated and 
unreal episodes were dropped, there remained the eternal story of 
a true love — as treated in Corneille's early plays — crossed by an 



envious rival or by avaricious parents or by the accidents of fate, 
ending with a general triumph for the lovers and with the tra- 
ditional marriages of all the parties concerned. But it was the 
construction of plot which was changed and simplified, rather 
than the characterization. The heroes of the ''contemporary" 
play remain true to the characteristics of the gentlemen-shepherd 
of the pastoral and of the sentimental novel; the lovers are still 
adorned with shepherd names ; thej^ still speak largely in precious 
*' style Nerveze"; they are easily deceived with false reports or 
by a letter ; they write poetry and complain in melodious verse ; 
they are tender-hearted, elegant, brave and constant, or they / 
make a display of methodic inconstancy after the manner of / 
Hylas in the Astree. Suicide and madness are the ordinary ef- ' 
fects of a real or supposed infidelity. But the consequences of 
their acts of despair are rarely tragic. Those who jump in the 
rivers are rescued, those who retire to the desert are brought 
back, those who go mad recover and the rustic pipes play the 
dance hymns of the happy couples at the final day of happiness. 

If this evolution of the pastoral play toward a greater reality, 
under the influence of the novels and the stories of contemporary 
life, is taken into account, the connection of Corneille's early 
plays with the literary evolution of the times will be less proble- 
matic. 

If the current in French literature of 1600-1630 toward the 
painting of contemporary life and toward more truthfulness in 
characterization had affected the young Corneille alone among the 
playwrights around 1630, it might be called an individual case, 
of which no general principle could be deduced. But the same 
phenomenon is to be observed about this same time, in the work 
of other playwrights, influenced by the same general literary ten- 
dencies. They attempted to bring contemporary life on the stage 
without the Melite having exerted any influence upon their work. 
Corneille 's bitter and opponent in the Cid quarrel, Claveret, 
seems to have produced at the time of the Melite his play Angelie 
ou I' esprit fort (1629-1630) (72) in which he shows really closer 
and more critical observation of contemporary humanity than 
Corneille in the Melite. The plot of the play is weak, though 
Claveret was very proud of having observed all the rules. It con- 
sists chiefly in the amusing courtship paid by suitors of various 
kinds to the three bewitching daughters of Cloridan. Two of 
the wooers are especially interesting from the point of view of 



the characterization of contemporary life: Criton, I'Esprit Fort, 
and his satelite, Nicandre, I'Esprit Doux. The sharp-witted An- 
gelic, one of the daughters of Cloridan depicts I'Esprit Fort: 

Ce raffine Cliton est un homme a la mode, 

Dont le seul entretien vaut bien qu 'on s 'incommode ! 

Affecter en parlant un ton imperieux; 

Blamer le feu d 'amour mais en feindre en tous lieux; 

En effet n 'aimer rien, vouloir qu'une maitresse, 

Admire leurs discours et leur fasse caresse; 

Publier des faveurs que jamais ils n'ont eucs 

Parle-t-on de I'etat, faire les politiques, 

Tantot paraitre froids, reveurs, melancholiques. 

Et puis se reveillant de ce profond sommeil, 

Soutenir qu'ils ont vu des taches au soleil. 

Pester contre le sort, le destin, la fortune, 

Et ne suivre jamais la creance commune 

Dire un mot des bons vers, puis y faire une glose, 

Jurer que Saint Martin fait mieux que Bellerose; 

Lorsqu 'on les contredit, faire les mutines : 

Un collet en desordre, un manteau sur le nez 

This style resembles more Corneille's manner in the Veuve, 
the Galerie du Palais, and La Place Royale than the Melite. The 
satire is less pronounced in the Melite than in the latter plays 
with the exception of the character of a fop, Philandre, who talks 
*'en style Nerveze." Claveret manifestly had read the satirical 
writers of the time, Regnier, Courval-Sonnet, Jean Auvray and 
others, and he betrayed their influence in the sketch of his Esprit 
Fort. And for the plays following the Clitandre, Corneille also 
seems to have imitated the tone of the satyrists. Even as Cor- 
neille's characters, for instance, in the Galerie du Palais, the Es- 
prit Fort gives his opinions about the literature of the day: 
' ' Ah ! J 'oublie a vous dire une plaisante chose : 
Criton dit que I'Astree est un sot livre en prose, 
Que Malherbe en son temps n'entendait rien aux vers. 
Comme il porte toujours son manteau de travers. 
Figurez vous. Monsieur qu'il a Tesprit de meme 

Claveret 's chief defect in his play is that it remains too 
much a literary satire. Corneille's Melite, less happy and realis- 
tic in characterization, surpasses it by its lively action, by its 
clever arrangement and succession of scenes, qualities which re- 
veal the born playwright. 



Another common feature of both plays is their satire of pre- 
ciosity and exaggerated compliments a la mode .... One of the 
girls makes fun of the fine-mannered lover who, in his verses, had 
called her a *'soleil ineendiaire" much after the fashion of Cor- 
neille's heroines in the M elite and the Veuve. She says: ''Je 

crains en m 'arretant de vous reduire en cendre " and about 

his verses: *'Je vais les rendre au feu, puisqu'ils sont tout de 
flamme . . . . " And when Criton indulges in ' * parler Phebus ' ', 
Angelie does not show any more enthusiasm than Corneille's 
Melite or his Veuve for his far fetched compliments and conven- 
tional flattery: 

Qui se pourrait resoudre a ne pas vous aimer, 

Puisque aux beautes d 'esprit celle du corps sont jointesf 

Vos cheveux seulement savent faire des pointes, 

Vos boucles des prisons, les plus petits des traits, 

Amour sur votre front met un arc tout expres. 

Angelie: Monsieur, je suis d' humeur a rever aujourd'hui. 

If Claveret did not disguise the truth in an attempt to prove 
that his play was earlier than Corneille's Melite, when he stated, 
in 1637, that he wrote his play nearly seven years previously to 
this date, it becomes worthy of note for the history of the French 
stage in the early decades of the seventeenth century. Its simi- 
larity with Corneille's early works cannot be explained, in that 
case, by influence of the one upon the other. It points clearly to 
a common source of inspiration in its preference for contempor- 
aneity and its general tone. And this common source we per- 
ceive in the novels of contemporary life, with additional color 
from the Ballets and from the satirical literature. 

Another play represented about 1630, P. du Ryer's Lisandre 
et Caliste, a tragi-comedy, of which the scene is laid in modern 
France, was directly inspired by a novel treating of contemporary 
events, by the Histoire tragi-comique de nostre temps by d'Audi- 
guier (1615). It affords another example of the influence of the 
novel in the direction of contemporaneity of material. The play 
is too overloaded with romantic incident, murder, duels, disap- 
pearances and heroic fights, to suggest a direct transcript from 
actual life. In the second act, however, a scene is found between 
a butcher and his wife, which was realistically staged in the Paris 
of the time as the Memoir e de Mahelot shows : ' * II f aut au milieu 



clii theatre le petit chastelet de la Rue de Sainct Jacques et faire 
paroistre une rue ou sont les bouchers, etc." (73). 

In 1633, Rayssiguier publishes his La Bourgeoise ou la Prom- 
enade de Saint-Cloud, which may have been played in 1631, and 
preceded Corneille's Gallerie du Palais (played probably in 
1632). At least, it may be considered as having appeared at the 
same time. It is built upon a complicated intrigue, engineered 
by the *' bourgeoise ' ' Avho desires to marry either one of the two 
suitors of her two friends. The stage scenery is specifically 
Parisian. A tendency to introduce contemporary stage-setting 
and, in a number of cases, Parisian stage-setting as a surround- 
ing for contemporary characters, developed in the thirties of the 
17th century. A lost play by La Pineliere was called La Foire 
de Sainct Germain; P. du Ryer gave his Vendanges de Suresnes; 
Mareschal his Bailleur, Claveret's Eaiix de Forges was not played 
following the Beponse a VAmy du Cid "par la discrete crainte 
qu'ils (les comediens) eurent de facher quelques personnes de con- 
dition qui pouvaient reconnoitre leurs aventures dans la repre- 
sentation de cette piece." (74). Another play of Claveret, a 
Place Boy ale, was represented in June or July 1633 (75). Bait. 
Baro sketched the characters of a lawyer and painter in his lost 
work La Force du Destin. The anonymous play Le matois Mary 
ou la Courtizane attrapee (Com. prose. 1634) contains details 
about the Parisian life of the time. Discret's Alizone depicts the 
lower bourgeoisie-class; Gillet de la Tessonerie derived a very 
indecent comedy from the satirical novel Francion, of Sorel, while 
Desmarets Saint Sorlin in his Les Visionnaires (1637) makes 
sport of the special forms of literary affectation of some fops and 
precieuses. Rayssiguier used the Thuileries as stage-setting as well 
as the Cinq Autheurs who desired to please Richelieu. Corneille's 
Melite was one of the first examples of this tendency toward con- 
temporaneity. Since we may reasonably accept that he was ac- 
quainted with the literature of his times, the numerous novels of 
contemporary life could not have escaped his attention. From 
their example and from the theories expounded in their prefaces 
he derived his tendency toward actuality in his first plays, more 
than from a direct copy of the existing society of his times. The 
influence which they exerted upon the young Corneille as well as 
upon other playwrights of the time consisted in inspiring them 
with a desire of bringing into their pastoral plots elements of 
actuality and verisimilitude. And from 1630 to 1636 Corneille, 



with his rather positive sense of life — even positive and affirma- 
tive in his heroic trao^edies — followed more consistently this im- 
pulse than his felloAV playwrights. 



In view of Thomas Corneille's and Fontenelle's testimonials, 
it can be accepted that the first impulse to write the M elite was 
due to a love-adventure of Pierre Corneille. Yet, while compos- 
ing his first play, he took color from the contemporary literature. 
Various episodes or characters of it denote conscious imitation of 
stock themes, such as the madness of Braste and the trick of the 
false letters, or of traditional characters, such as the nui*se. As 
far as the characterization of the principal heroes and heroines is 
concerned, his imitation seems less direct and more in the nature 
of an influence: his heroes resemble closely, it is true, those of 
the pastoral and of the sentimental novel, but they seem to be 
specimens of the same type rather than slavish copies derived 
from a direct source. A more conscious effort of art can be de- 
tected in Corneille 's endeavor to depict on the stage contempor- 
ary life, after the fashion of many novels of the time. 

Because of its predominant literary inspiration the Melite 
cannot be interpreted entirely as an auto-biographical document: 
it throws more light on the fact that Corneille was well acquaint- 
ed with the French literature of his day than on his life. Its 
characters cannot be identified with living personages, with Cath- 
erine Hue, Corneille himself and his sister, Marie. When the 
purely literary elements are taken out of the play, the auto-bio- 
graphical side is seen to shrink to slender proportions : it is prob- 
able that the part relating to the sonnet "Apres les yeux de 
Melite, il n' y a rien d' adorable", is a trace of Corneille 's actual 
experience, for Corneille printed this sonnet before the play, and 
in the Melite it constitutes a kind of ''hors d' oeuvre", without 
any direct bearing on the action. 

On the other hand the literary influences upon the Melite 
here discussed prove that Corneille was well aware of the literary 
life of his period, even at his debut, and that he cannot be con- 
ceived as a young man, who, without literary preparation, sud- 
denly began to write an original comedy merely to celebrate his 
sweetheart's charms. His first work appears rather as a natural 
outgrowth of the influences by which he was surrounded in Rouen, 
a center of literary activity at the time. From this point of 



view, too, his early comedies are seen to be connected with the 
literature of his epoch, which largely inspired him in various con- 
vental episodes and in his early conception of character. No 
*' abyss" — as has been said — separates Corneille from the preced- 
ing literature. The first blossoming of his art was a natural phe- 
nomenon of development, due to his milieu and his natural cur- 
iosity for literature; no sudden and spontaneous miracle of love. 

NOTES 

(1) Bouquet. — Points ohscurs et nouveaux de la vie de 
Pierre Corneille. Ch. VI. — Corneille et la Cour de Louis XIII 
aux Eaux de Forges. 

(2) La Bruyere. — Des ouvrages de I' esprit. — Ed. Servais. 
1912, I, p. 139. 

(3) Boileau. — Reflexions critiques sur Longin. Ed. Gidel, 
III, 363-64. 

(4) Voltaire — Avis sur les comedies de Corneille. — Oeu- 
vres. 1785, vol. 51, p. 447. 

(5) La Harpe — Lycee ou Cours de Litt. 1820, V, 195. 

(6) msard.— Hist, de la Litt. fr. II, 96. 

(7) Abbe d' Olivet cited by Le Brun: Corneille devant 
trois siecles. 

(8) msaYd.—Hist. de la litt. fr., II, 87. 

(9) Roger Le Brun. — Corneille devant trois siecles. — Intro- 
duction, p. 11. 

(10) F. Brunetiere. — Hist, de la litt. fr. classique. II, 173. 

(11) 1108; Dictionnaire geographique. Word: Rouen. 

(12) Marty -Laveaux, X. 

(13) Nouvelles de la Repuhlique des lettres — 1685. p. 89. 
:Eloge de M. Corneille. Marty-Laveaux (I, 21 and 125) attri- 
butes this article to an anonymous author. U. Meyer in the 
Zeitschrift f. Franz. Spr. und Lit. 1885 (p. 119, note 2) attri- 
butes it to Fontenelle. Cf . Also the other studies on Corneille by 
IT. Meyer. 

(14) Introduction to the edition of Corneille 's works by 
the abbe Granet, 1738. 

(15) Manuscript in the library of Caen. It has been dated 
about 1785-90. 

(16) Emm. Gaillard — Nouveaux details sur Pierre Cor- 
neille, 1834. 

(17) See his edition of Corneille, I, 128. 



(18) F. Bouquet, op. cit. 62. 

(19) Marie Corneille was baptized on November 4, 1609. 
Cf . Bouquet op. cit, 62. 

(20) The most reliable account is, of course, the one given 
by Thomas Corneille. Fontenelle was born at Rouen in 1657. 
Pierre Corneille left that city for Paris in 1662, when his 
nephew was five years old. Fontenelle himself confessed that 
his knowledge of the historical facts of Pierre Corneille 's life 
was limited and uncertain. Speaking about the edition of Cor- 
neille 's works by the abbe Granet, in 1738, he said: On a 
receuilli, avec soin et avec gout, ces diiferentes pieces, dont on 
a fait un volume a la suite de son Theatre, reimprime en 1738, 
et je ne puis mieux faire que de renvoyer sur toute cette 
matiere. ... qu' a une preface judicieuse et bien ecrite, ou 1' on 
trouvera de plus des traits historiques que je ne savais pas. L' 
auteur y doute d' un fait que j' avals avance; j' avoue que son 
doute seul m ' ebranle ; c ' est un fait que j ' ai trouve etabli dans 
ma memoire comme certain, quoique depouille de toutes ses 
preuves, que j' ai eu tout le loisir dWblier parf aitement. " 
{Vie de Corneille par Fontenelle, ed. Belin, p. 348 and Hist, de 
r Academie Francaise, by Pellison et d' Olivet, ed. Livet p. 
208.) 

(21) See my articles in Modern Philology: A common- 
place in Corneille 's Melite. XVII, 141; and Corneille 's early 
Friends and Surroundings, XVIII, 361. 

(22) For a list of translations, see Lee Wolff. — The Greek 
Romances in Elizabethan Prose Fiction. 1506. — Italian transla- 
tion of books V-VIII by L. Dolce. — 1560. — Complete Italian 
translation by Angelo Coccio. — 1597. — English translation by 
Wm. Burton. 

(23) Les Devis amour eux, traduits nagueres de grec en 
latin et depuis de latin en frangois par V Amour eux de Vertu. — 
Paris. G. Corrozet. 1545. 

(24) Lyon, C. Marchant. 1556.— Lyon B. Rigaud. 1573. 

(25) See H. Carrington Lancaster. — Two lost plays by 
Alex. Hardy. — Modern Language Notes. May, 1912. 

(25a) See H. Carrington Lancaster — Pierre du Byer, 
dramatist. 

(26) G. Reynier. — Le roman sentimental avant V Astree, 
p. 380 



(26a) Corneille's Illusion ComiquSy Mahelot's Memoir e, and 
Rampalle's Belinde. Studies in Philology , XVIII, 1. 

(27) Probably 1628. 

(28) A. Feuillerat. — John Lyly: Contribution a I' histoire 
de la Renaissance en Angleterre. Cambridge, 1910, pp. 74-75; 
274-75. 

(29) Cf, S. Lee Wolff.— A source of Euphues. Modern 
Philology, April, 1910. Also his book "The Greek Romances in 
Elizabethan Prose." Fiction.— 1912, p. 248. 

(30) Wilhelm Grimm {Kleiner e Schriften, III), Erwin 
Rohde {Der Griechische Roman and seine Yorlaufer, p. 274), 
,and Gaston Paris {La litt. fr. au Moyen Age, p. 51) agree that 
the probable source of the Rival-friends story is a lost Greek 
romance. The old French poem Athis et Prophilias by Alex- 
andre de Barnai seems to be based on it. Rohde and others 
think it possible that Boccaccio made use of the lost Middle- 
Greek romance for his Tito e Gisippo. A curious hypothesis is 
set up by Mr. S. L. Wolff about Goldsmith's possible knowledge 
of the Greek source and about the use he made of it for his 
rival story: Septimius and Alcander. — See L. Wolff, op. cit. p. 
263. The essential features of the story are found in Petrus 
Alphonsus Disciplina Clericalis (circa 1106) ; in the Gesta Ro- 
manorum; in Thomas de Cantimpre's De Proprietatibus Apum 
(after 1251); in Nicolas Pergamenus" Dialogus Creaturarum 
(13th or 14th century) ; etc. 

(31) 1535, f. 211-227. 

(32) By Jean Barbe d'Orge. 1537. 

(33) Phillippi Beroaldi Bononiensis Poete Carmen de Bug- 
bus Amantibus 1530. — L' hystoyre de Titus et Gesippus et 
autres petiz oeuvres de Beroalde Latin, interpretes en Rime 
Frangoise par Francois Habert. 1431. — Cf. S. Lee Wolff op. cit. 
and Yiolier des Histoires Romaines (translation of the Gesta 
Romanorum). Republished in the Bibl. Elzevirienne, 1858. — p. 
392-93. 

(34) Astree. — Vol. II, story I and II; vol. V, story 5 and 
p. 373. 

(35) Adapted from the Astree: Histoire de Celion et de 
Bellinde (I, story 10). Played about 1631, printed 1634. 

(36) Hardy. — Oeuvres. — Ed. Stengel. 

(37) Hardy's Borise was adapted from a story of de Ros- 



set's Eistoires des Amans volages de ce temps ou sous des noms 
empruntez sont contenus les Amours de plusieurs Princes^ Seig- 
neurs, Gentils-hommes, et autres personnes de marque, qui ont 
trompe leurs Maistresses, ou qui ont este trompez d' elles. 1614 
( ?) 1616, 1619, etc. 

(39) 1632. Marsan, La Pastorale dramatique. 

(40) Bouquet.— op. cit. 57-58. 

(41) These passages were erased in later editions. See 
the footnotes in Marty-Laveaux's edition. 

(42) I, 8; II, 3, 4; III, 7, 9; V,l, 12. 

(43) 1635; Cf. Marsan. La Pastorale dramatique. 

(44) Marty-Lav. I, 156. 

(45) Such a scene Avas quite general and conventional in 
the pastoral plays of the time. It is also found in novels. The 
second scene of the first act of T. Tasso's Aminta was an influ- 
ential example. To Tasso's influence seems due that in Theocris, 
a pastorale of P. Troterel, sieur d' Aves, (1610, Rouen, Du Petit- 
Val.) the joyful Neridon gives to his friend Theocris the same 
worldly-\Adse counsels. 

(46) By de Nerveze.— 1601 ( 1) 1602. Included in the col- 
lective edition of de Nerveze 's stories: Amours diver ses. 1606. 
(The 6th story). 

(47) Marty-Lav. I, 139. 

(48) Gaste. — La querelle du Cid. p. 309. 

(49) See my article in Modern Philology (July, 1910) : A 
Commonplace in Corneille's Melite: The madness of Eraste. 
The lovers of the novels, of the pastoral plays and of the tragi- 
comedies of the 1600-1640 period were frequently represented 
as mad, as attempting suicide, or rushing, in imagination, 
through the infernal regions. Mad lovers are especially preva- 
lent in the plays which appeared about the time that the Melite 
was being composed or soon after its first representation, so 
that they may have been acted before Corneille's play. The ar- 
ticle refers, for similar scenes, to Hardy's Alcmeon ou la ven- 
geance feminine, Racan's Bergeries, Pichou's Folies de Car- 
denio, Mairet's Sylvie, Rotrou's Hypocondriaque, Mareschal's 
Genereuse Allemande, Jacques Le Clerc's Guerrier Repenty, de 
la Croix's Climene, de la Morelle's Philine ou V amour contraire, 
the anonymous play La Folic de Silene (1624), du Vicuget's Ad- 
ventures de Policandre et de Basilic. 



(50) Les Oeicvres de Philippes Des Fortes. Lyon, Rigaud, 
1593. f. 221. 

Other forms of poetry also felt the influence of this conven- 
tion. In the Franciade of Ronsard the madness of Clymene is 
depicted. Learning that Francus has rejected her love she los- 
es her reason and runs, ''hurlante par les champs" pursuing a 
wild boar whom she takes for her lover. Another instance is 
to be found in Les Changementz de la Bergere Iris by J. de 
Lingendes (Paris, 1605) where Philene having lost his sweet- 
heart thus narrates his experiences : 

Lors m'egarant en mes propos, 
Sans nourriture et sans repos, 
Et repaissant ma fantaisie 
De ce qui I'alloit offensant, 
Mon mal tons jours se renforcant 
Enfin je tombe en frenaisie. 



Et voyant, mais sans jugement, 
Et prive de tout sentiment, 
Un vieil Nautonnier pasle et sombre, 
Je pensay que ce fust Charron, 
Qui m'enlevait sur I'Acheron, 
Croyant n'estre plus que mon ombre. 

These conventional madness scenes became popular in the 
novels of which Astree may be taken as a representative. In an 
episode of the second volume {Histoire de Doris et Falemon) 
Adraste becomes insane through love and the author, d'Urfe, 
used the material for his pastoral play Sylvanire. In the His- 
toire de Rosanire, Celiodante et Bosileon of the fourth volume, 
Celiodante has the same misfortune. And this episode furnish- 
ed the material for a lost play of Pichou, Bosileon, and for the 
Cleomedon of Du Ryer which was first played under the name 
of Rossyleon (cf. Carrington Lancaster, P. Du Ryer). In the 
seventh volume Azahyde makes an unsuccessful attempt to mur- 
der Sylvandre. The father of Azahyde dies broken hearted 
whereupon the latter shuns society and brooding over his sins 
becomes insane. His description of his experience, which is 
typical, shows hoAv d'Urfe appropriated the processes to be 
found in the tragedies, tragi-eomedies and pastoral plays of the 
time: Ainsi ne trouvant plus de paix dans la societe, je recourus 



a la solitude, et pour cela je me retiray en une maison que j 'ay 
aux champs, mais mon peche qui me suivoit partout ne me 
donna pas plus de relasche la qu'ailleurs; au contraire, comme 
si le ciel eust voulu me punir par moy-mesme, il permit que 
durant plus d'un mois je n'eus jamais de pensees que celles de 
ma faute, et de la punition que j'en pouvois encourir. Ce qui 
me troubla de sorte, que je recognus sensiblement que peu a peu 
ma raison se perdit dans la violence de ce ressentiment. Je 
combattis quelque temps contre la naissance de ce mal; mais 
les Dieux qui voulurent appesantir leurs mains sur moy, me 
firent bien tost esprouver qu'ils pouvoient donner aux mortels 
des peines plus grandes que celles qui proviennent de la perte 
de la raison. et de fait, une nuict que j'estois enferme dans ma 
chambre, et couche dans mon lit, j'ouys, tout a coup, ouvrir la 
porte, avec un bruit espouventable, et soudain que j'eus porte 
curieusement la vue pour apprendre ce que c'estoit, je vis 
Abariel (his father) convert de sang en plusieurs endroits ten- 
ant dans Tune de ses mains un flambeau allume, et dans I'autre 
un coeur perce de trois on quatre cousteaux; II avoit devant 
soy Tune des Furies et les autres deux a ses costez, toutes trois 
portants un Flambeau comme luy, et armee dans Tautre main 
de f ouets retors, qui se separoient en diverses pointes . . . . il se 
retire deux ou trois pas, et faisant un certain signe aux Furies 
qui Taccompagnoient aussitost elles se saisirent de moy, et 
cependant que Tune me faisoit devorer le sein par des serpents, 
I'autre me brusloit de son flambeau, et la troisiesme me dechir- 
ant de coups sans s'amolir, sembloit accroistre sa rage par mes 

cris et par mes plaintes Je f us dans ce tourment plus 

d'une heure, apres laquelle un si grand assoupissement me 
saisit, qu'il dura jusqu' au jour." (Vol. V, Story 10, P. 345). 

Another counterpart of the situation is found in Du Perier's 
novel, La Haine et I' Amour cZ' Arnold et de Clair emonde. 
(1600) p. 10. 

Other plays with madness scenes are : Stratonice ou le 
malade d' Amour — Tragi-comedie by de Brosse (1644), — Antioc- 
lus loves his mother-in-law Stratonice. He feigns madness to 
obtain her hand. Mairet's tragedy Roland (1640) imitates the 
madness of Orlando furioso. The tragedy Arie et Petus, ou les 
Amours de Neron by Gilbert (1659) ends with the remorse and 
madness of Nero. 

(52) La Comedie au XVIIe siecle, p. 32. 



(53) Here should be noted that the platonic love theories 
played an important part in this transformation. Authors like 
Castiglione in his Cortegiano, Leo Hebreo in his Philosophie d' 
Amour, Cornelius Agrippa in his Declamatio de nohilitate et 
preecellentia feminei sexus; Heroet in his Par f aide Amie, each 
in their own way, had brought Platonism down from the clear 
regions of abstract thought to practical life. Helped by the 
numerous books in favor of women, connected with the eternal 
quarrel of the sexes in French and other literatures, they had 
transformed it into a sort of society-science, a code of rules gov- 
erning social conduct and conversation. Pastoral novels and 
plays, being a mixture of things real and things ideal, of con- 
temporary ''perfect gentlemen" and of imaginary rustics, were 
pervaded by the same atmosphere. 

(54) The date of this book is given as 1614. The Privi- 
lege of the edition Denys Moreau, Paris, is dated July 31, 1616. 

(55) It is reasonable to suppose that Corneille would have 
read a number of the novels and plays published at Rouen, the 
more that one of the principal publishers of the time, Raphael 
du Petit-Val, was his friend. He must have been acquainted, 
too, with the works of the various authors who dedicated verse 
to him for his La Veuve. We also know the titles of some of 
the books which he received as prizes in the school of the 
Jesuits at Rouen. The known sources of his later works prove 
that he read contemporary Spanish plays and ballads, Amyot's 
translation of Plutarch, and various Latin historians. 

Martin enche {La Comedia espagnola en France) has nothing 
to say about Spanish influence upon the M elite. Huszar in his 
Corneille et le theatre Espagnol gives a list of very general fea- 
tures common to Corneille 's early plays and the Spanish Comed- 
ia. But he cites no case of definite similarit}^ Corneille 's first 
work resembles the French models cited in this study much 
more closely in both spirit and detail than it does the Spanish 
plays to "which Mr. Huszar refers in a general way. 

(56) Marty-Laveaux, I, 139. 

(57 Cf. my study on Corneille' s early Friends and Sur- 
roundings. Modern Philology, XVIII, p. 366. 

(58) The expression ''real life" is not taken here as a syn- 
onym for "realism." It means that the characters of the novel 
or of the play are taken from the humanity of the time, and not 
from legend, history or mythology. 



(59) The following plays are inspired by the Astree: 1. 
Rayssiguier, Tragi-comedie pastorale ou les amours d' Astree et de 
Celadon sont meslees a celles de Diane, de Silvandre et de Paris. 
2. Mareschal — Ulnconstance d'Hylas. 3. La Prise de Marcilly 
de M. (Durval?) cited by the Memoire de Mahelot (fol. 41). The 
play is lost. 4. Auvray; La Dorinde. 5. Baro; La Clorise. 6. 
Rayssiguier: Palinice, Circene et Florice. 7. de Scudery; Lig- 
damon et Lidias, 8. Cotignon: Madonte. 9. Auxtsly : Madonte. 

10. Piehou: Rosileon (mentioned by Isnard) lost play. 11. Du 
Ryer: Rossyleon (same play as the "Cleomedon'* Cf. Carrington 
Lancaster: P. Du Ryer, p. 62-63). 12. Mairet: Chriseide et 
Arimant. 13. de Scudery : Orante. 14. de Scudery : Eudoxe. 
15. Abel de Sainte Marthe: Isidore ou la pudicite vengee, 16. 
Gillet de la Tessonnerie : La Mort de Valentinien et d^Isidore, 

17. Rayssiguier: Alidor et Orante ou la Celidee ou la Calirie, 

18, d'Urfe: La Sylvanire. 19. Mairet: La Sylvanire. 20. de 
Scudery: Le Vassal genereux. 21. de Scudery:. Le Trompeur 
puny ou Vhistoire septentrionale. 

(60) Les Bergeries de Vesper ou les amours d^Antonin^ 
Florelle et autres Bergers et Bergeres de Pla-cemont et Beausejour, 
par le sieur Guillaume Coste, Gentilhomme provencal. A ParLs — 
Rollin Baragnes — J. Bouillerot 1618.'' 

(61) Cleoreste, II, f. 191. 

(62) Preface of Les Evenemens singuliers 1628. 

(63) PP. 305, 462, 758. Xot without importance too, is the 
influence of works as Fancan's Tomheau des Romans 1626; the 
Berger Extravagant and Barclay's EupJiormi^n. See Livre 

11, chap. 3. . . .Tu Terras comme I'autheur se moque de quelques 
uns qui estiment si fort ce que les anciens ont fait qu'ils ne pen- 
vent s'imaginer que ceux d' a present puissent mieux faire ou 
mieux dire (Translation of Nau. 1626). 

(64) 1664. 

(65) Examen de M elite — Marty-Laveaux I, 138. 

(66) P. Troterel: L' Amour triomphant, 1615. 

(67) Tallemant: Eistoriettes — Yigneul — Marville. Melanges 
d'Histoire et de Litterature, 1725, I, 177. 

(68) This play was printed in 1635, but played in 1629 or 
1630 as shown by the Avis au Lecteur where the author refers to 
the ai^plause which his play **a receus sur un theatre de cinq 
ans." In the dedicace to Henry de Lorraine, he says about 



Hylas: ^'Qu'il vienne pare de ses graces naturelles qui I'ont fait 
souvent admirer sur le theatre afin de vous aborder plus honor- 
ablement des applaudissements qu'il a receus de tout Paris et 
d'une vieille reputation continuee de cinq a six ans.'* 

(69) Cfr. Marsan — La Pastorale dramatique, Chapter VII. 

(70) Ihid, Ch. VI and VII. 

(71) Cf. Ballets et Masoarades de Cour de Henri III a 
Louis XIV — published by Paul Lacroix, 1870, 6 volumes, Henry 
Prunieres ; Le Ballet de cour en France avant Benserade et Lully, 
1914. H. Carrington Lancaster : Relations between French Plays 
and Ballets from 1581 to 1650. Publications of the Modern Lan- 
guage Association, XXXI, No. 3. 

(72) This play was printed in 1636, according to the Freres 
Parf aict. They state the author said in his preface : * ' II est 
sorti de ma plume, il y a plus de sept ans." M. Linthillac testi- 
fies that he does not know of any edition earlier than 1637 (Paris 
Targa). The text referred to higher reads there: '*I1 est sorti 
de ma plume il y a pres de sept ans." The play must therefore 
be dated 1629 or 1630 — Cf Linthillac: Histoire de la Comedie au 
XVII, Siecle, p. 8. 

(73) Cf. The important critical republication of Mahelot's 
Memoire by Professor Carrington Lancaster. Paris Champion, 
1921; and, for the enumeration of plays in this paragraph his 
study: Relations between French plays and Ballets from 1581 
to 1650. Publications of the Modern Language Association of 
America. XXXI, No. 3. 

(74) Gaste. — La querelle du Cid. p. 304. 

(75) Corneille was accused by Claveret of having begun his 
Place Royale *'Des que vous sutes que j'y travaillois" Lettre du 
sieur Claveret a Corneille. Gaste, op. cit. 305. 



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